Drunk on You
by kiaronna
Summary: "We'll just pretend to be soulmates until you retire," Viktor offers, "That's what you need from me right now. It wouldn't be hard." Yuuri doesn't know if that's true, but they try anyway. (A collection of soulmate AUs. 6: where the government is in charge of handling soulmates and things get deliciously... filled with paperwork)
1. Drunk on You

_A/N: A quick explanation of this soulmate AU: after you meet your soulmate, you become progressively drunker around them, unless you're touching. Being absent from your soulmate for a while will result in a hangover, but eventually you'll return to your normal sober life, unless you meet them again. Confusing? Please bear with me._

 _If you have an idea for a soulmate AU, please let me know through review and I might write a oneshot for it. I am trying to avoid the ones that I repeatedly see (your soulmate's name tattooed on your arm, a timer counting down until you meet, you get colors when you first touch, etc), but other than that I'm wide open and ready for inspiration! Hit me._

Drunk On You

The universe has a unique sense of humor. Viktor is Russian; he's supposed to be the one who can handle his liquor. But the instant he sees his soulmate for the second time that day, he's a drunken man—giddy and giggling, snapping photos, wondering when it is right to approach and say _you are giving me wings_. He knows the other man feels it too, even more strongly, his cheeks flushed, his muscles limber and step tottering.

"I'm so drunk," the Japanese man whispers, low and conspiratorial, to the figure skating champion. "But I can- _hic_ —still beat anyone at a dance competition."

 _There's only champagne here,_ Viktor wants to laugh, _You know who's making you feel this way_. His sight is beginning to blur; he feels himself falling deeper into a drunken and lazy stupor until his soulmate's arms find their way around him and the symptoms fall off to a pleasant buzz. He's still drunk enough to feel oddly and deeply flattered by the gyrating request _be my coach_ ; still sober enough to know that the flush in his own cheeks is adoration for this sloppy yet genuine man. He laughs and claps in the dance-off, he watches dreamily and with stomach dropping amusement at the pole routine.

They dance, and it's almost too much for his limbs to handle, to say nothing of his heart. Then it's all over, or maybe it's all beginning, and they're stumbling through dim hotel halls with their hands interlinked.

"I won," his soulmate says in shiny eyed wonder.

"I won," Viktor laughs. "But there's always next year."

"No," the man replies seriously, "I won _you_." Their fingers are interlaced. Viktor feels himself becoming more sober by the minute, but his heart is still glowing with warmth, bubbling up like poured champagne. He leans down to kiss him—just a kiss, no farther, he swears— but a palm presses to the champion's cheek and a smile fills his whole vision. Fingertips are dancing across his silver fringe, and then their foreheads are pressed together, and they're both _laughing_ , still laughing, two drunkards alone with their antics. _Isn't this feeling supposed to go away when we touch?_ Viktor wonders in a daze, but he can't think too hard about it. Everything is warm. Everything is hazy. Everything is sweet.

"Come to my room," he tells him, and his soulmate lets go.

"I can't," is the breezy reply. "I promised I'd call home."

 _Surely you're joking_ , Viktor thinks, but it becomes all too real, and he is left empty and alone in a hallway. It feels like standing on a podium; there is no surprise in being by himself, not anymore. The next day, he waits in his room, because all of the skaters know where he's staying, feels his body grow heavy with the drunken need to _touch_. Yakov forbids him from interviewing; the champion is slurring too badly. He dreams fitfully of the Japanese skater, and eagerly waits.

* * *

By the third day, he's still heard nothing from his soulmate, and the hangover begins in earnest. He misses jumps; he holds his head in cold showers, turns off the lights in his house, tries to fill up the soul bond hangover with physical liquor. Nothing works. _Surely_ the Japanese man feels the same; surely he's realized by now how awful their separation will be.

 _Come back_ , Viktor wills him desperately.

He doesn't.

The hangover ends, finally, but Viktor's already winning competitions again. What else is there to do? Being sober makes him more of a mess, so in his off time he drinks and plays ridiculous games with Makkachin. How had he been like this for so long?

He watches the video, and the mere sight of his soulmate on screen makes Viktor's stomach flip. It's beautiful, more beautiful than anything he's ever performed in just the expression of it. But the video is something worse than that—it is a love letter, or a siren call, unavoidable in its supposedly innocent admiration. Yakov forbids him from going. Viktor goes.

On his way, he imagines them together, he and this sweetly drunk man. Viktor sees him welcoming him into his home, his hot springs, taking his hand and scolding with soft confidence, _I've been waiting. Why didn't you chase me?_ In response, Viktor would just give him what he'd asked for, what he'd wanted: a coach. The champion is tipsy at the very thought of it, at having that raw talent in that uninhibited body, and having it to himself to form, and _loving_ every moment of it.

His soulmate passes out at the sight of him.

Viktor is a quick learn, and despite his position as coach he spends most of his first week doing that. He also spends most of his first week as a sloppy, half drunken man, because despite the intoxication that he knows swept over his body immediately at the sight of the other skater in the onsen, his student is averse to touching.

His soulmate is quiet. Shy. Every touch of Viktor, even ones just to dissipate the soulmate induced drunken mist clouding his mind, are met with tense rejection and fleeing. He runs his fingers gently over his student's skin—rejection. He invades his personal space abruptly—rejection. He waits, not touching, until his vision is blurring and gravity is heavy upon him and his mind comes up with the brilliant idea that they should have a sleepover—rejection!

"Why can't we sleep together?" He nearly slurs, his knuckles barely rapping the door, missing it every few knocks. "Yuuuuuri."

"No!" Comes the wail from the other side of the door.

Pure _frustration_. The legend begins to wonder if his soulmate cares at all—if perhaps the boy was enthralled by the idea of having Viktor Nikiforov wrapped desperately around his finger as his soulmate but never intending to be in an actual relationship with him. Then he secretly watches the Japanese skater move in anxious, dazed circles on the ice late into the night, and his heart swells, and Viktor rejects that idea.

So he's tried everything. Or most everything. Finally, he tries patience, which has never been his strong suit. Yuuri will come around eventually—he _has_ to. He can't afford to be drunk and stumbling on the ice, which he will be if he and Viktor don't share a skinship.

Yuuri does far more than just come around. He accepts touches—he _initiates_ touches. When they talk about his life, about his time in Detroit, Yuuri is flushing and quiet but earnest when he answers. Being far away makes Viktor slur, but being close still makes Yuuri stutter. And they are breathlessly close as time goes on.

* * *

The night after he's kissed him at the cup of China, Yuuri is timid—at least until he's got his coach cornered in their hotel room. Viktor is feeling sickening drunk after having kept his hands to himself following their public display, but the nausea settles when his glowing Yuuri takes his face between two calloused palms and kisses him again.

"I'm not fun," his soulmate warns fretfully. "I'm not—I'm not like you, Viktor, are you okay with that?"

They're touching everywhere. Viktor knows he's supposed to be sober, but somehow his impulse control his nowhere to be found.

"Don't be any other way," he whispers, and they're kissing again, and Viktor is using his tongue in a manner that would definitely not be appropriate for a live television broadcast.

In the morning, his twitter feed is awash in the news.

 _'THE HUG at the cup of China!'_ He snorts at that one. The next headline is better.

 _'Legend Viktor Nikiforov and student kiss on the ice!'_

The last headline makes him smile more than any other.

 _'Nikiforov, playboy extraordinaire and long without attachments, chooses student over soulmate!'_

He wants to correct them with a giddy laugh, but firstly he wants to share this with Yuuri, and with a flick of his wrist he shows his sleepy soulmate the dramatic article on his phone screen.

"Look," he exclaims with near glee. "Look at how ridiculous they're being." It must be too early, because Yuuri's eyes glaze and he rolls over in bed. Viktor can't have that—he lightly smacks at the body beneath the covers and smothers the Japanese skater's dark hair in kisses. _I'm so drunk_ , Viktor thinks in amazement, _I'm so drunk off of_ him _._ "Wake up, we have a flight to catch." Yuuri intakes a shaking breath, trembling so much that Viktor almost questions it aloud, before he rolls his limber frame from beneath the sheets and is padding off to the bathroom.

* * *

Yuuri changes after the cup of China, and Viktor is definitely not complaining. There's a somber seriousness to almost everything he does, moreso than his typically strained behavior, and when Yuuri invades his room in the middle of the night a week after the cup of China, Viktor is pleasantly surprised. They talk for a few hours, starting out with amusingly trite comments and deepening into an affectionate exchange of ideas. Viktor holds his skater's hand, circles his thumb over the scarred palm, sways back and forth as he chats with the joy of time spent together while Yuuri watches with a small half smile. A comforting silence has fallen over the inn, and Viktor is sure all of Yuuri's family is fast asleep in bed.

"Do you often have trouble sleeping?" It's a gentle question, one Viktor forgets how he's stumbled across, but the Japanese man shrugs and nods.

"Everything tenses up, and my mind races, and sometimes it's just too much. Do you?"

"Sometimes," Viktor admits. "Mostly I just forget and it becomes late. Usually I'm too exhausted from practice to stay up, but every once in a while I get nervous and sleepless about other things." His student is processing this information slowly, and Viktor's heart flutters. "I think my soulmate could help, though." He tightens his grip on Yuuri's hand, only to be met with a look from the younger that Viktor clearly recognizes but hasn't seen in weeks— _rejection_. "What-" he begins, feeling betrayed, but Yuuri's lips are on him, all over, and the black haired man suddenly has him pinned to the bed. _Eros_ , is all Viktor can think, and he appreciates how sober he is so that he's not numb to the delicious friction of Yuuri moving against him, of teeth nipping the skin of his neck. His soulmate's hands are working smoothly on his robe's tie, the hand formerly holding his sliding up his chest to rest atop his heart. Viktor hears words, can't understand them, but knows they are in breathless, rapid Japanese, and he opens his lips to respond in his own frantic Russian _I love you, I love you, I love you_ —

"Don't talk, please," Yuuri interrupts, and it's a strange sort of agony that comes over his face. "Just—don't, Viktor."

"Why?" He struggles to sit up but his soulmate pushes him back down with a fierce desperation.

"I'm trying—" the Japanese man breaks off, bites his lip, ducks his head. Viktor just stares at him, baffled. "You're mine," he says finally, lowly, "You promised to keep your eyes on me."

"I am," the champion tells him, and wonders what he's done wrong. Brown eyes meet his icy blue, and despite the warmth of color Viktor sees a distinct lack of passionate heat, sees only a different emotion that is hard to grasp. The eyes close. Viktor is cut off.

It's hard to process when Yuuri is sucking at his collarbone. "I think we should talk—" Viktor tries to interject, but the Japanese skater's hand dips low, searching across his body, and his hips rock against his will. "Yuuri, I'm worried about—" His student's hand finds what it's looking for and his mind is going blank in a searing blaze of white delight. Habit catches him, and he catches Yuuri's lips and invades them. _Maybe he doesn't want to talk_ , Viktor thinks in a confused rush, _He's never been a huge fan of it._ He can feel himself letting go, falling into the delicious movements, hoping that he can show Yuuri things he knows his beloved has never experienced before.

He kisses his soulmate's cheeks, and is surprised to find that they're wet. Suddenly his Yuuri's reckless movements against him mean nothing.

"Why are you crying?"

The emotion in his eyes is misery. It's loss. Viktor recognizes it suddenly, knows it, and it breaks his heart.

"Of course I'm crying," the younger chokes out. "You're going to leave me."

"Never, дорогой," Viktor insists, even if he doesn't understand what his student is saying. Yuuri is anxious, and whatever is tearing him up is beyond Viktor at this point. "Is this about what I said at the Cup of China? You know I didn't mean that. I think you need sleep. It's been a long week." He pats the mattress beside him, and Yuuri's eyes dart there and back, before settling into grim determination.

"I'm going to my room."

Then Yuuri is gone, and the alcohol of the soulbond burns through his veins all night. It sits rankling in his stomach, and his mind flickers through things hazily and irrationally and with heated anger. Yuuri means well, means well always because he is a wonderful man, but Viktor is exhausted with trying to understand him, trying to reach him. He intends to have a long talk with him in the morning.

In the morning, it's like the fight never even happened. Yuuri lets him touch, and touches him back without any of the desperation of the previous night. The legend reasons that anxiety over competition must have gotten the better of him, just for a while. In two days, the conversation falls away and the Rostelecom cup looms on the horizon.

During the Rostelecom cup, Yuuri tells him to go home and be with his dying dog.

Viktor cannot express how much this means, how much it means to know that Yuuri will be half drunk and miserable throughout his free skate just so that Viktor can see his beloved Makkachin. The desire to tell him no, to insist that he stays, is powerful. But the insistent love Yuuri feels is powerful too.

"You have to go," the skater proclaims with no room for argument. They buy the champion's ticket home together, entwined on the bed, Yuuri clicking through the airport webpage while Viktor's heart trembles and wonders how on earth he will ever _deserve_ this man. He buries his face into his skater's neck, pushes closer and closer, touches him until he has to go catch his cab, hopes that somehow the soul bond will be merciful.

It is not merciful to him. By the time he returns home from the vet with Makkachin the following day to watch Yuuri on the screen at the Rostelecom cup, he can barely stand. When Yuuri takes the ice, he feels fear sink into him. _Yuuri will stumble—Yuuri will fall, because I left him to suffer through this alone. I will have ruined things for him, and he'll never forgive me_.

Then Yuuri skates. He does not skate well, but he skates. And he enters the Grand Prix.

* * *

On the way home from the airport together, his vision and mind finally clear from the intoxication of the soul bond with their fingers laced together, he tries to make conversation with his Yuuri.

"I've thought this before," he says, "But I'm amazed by your tolerance. I guess it has to do with your stamina."

"What?" Yuuri's gaze is mild and warm, still satisfied by their reunion in the airport. Their cab driver turns up the Japanese radio over the sound of their accented English.

"The soul bond," Viktor explains, feeling foolish. "I mean the soul bond. You were still graceful out on the ice—I'm Russian, we're supposed to have good tolerance, and even I could hardly walk to the couch to lay down and watch you on television while I was in Japan."

Yuuri abruptly makes searing eye contact and doesn't break it.

"What," he repeats tonelessly. Viktor feels helpless, almost embarrassed.

"Oh," he admits hesitantly, "Maybe it's just particularly bad for me?"

"You know my history." He looks the other way out the dark window. _History?_ Viktor thinks. _Does he mean the banquet? He was still graceful, still pole dancing, even though I know he had to be drunk out of his mind off of our first meeting. He was drunk, just by the look of him. I suppose skating isn't that different._ "Of course my soulbond wouldn't affect me." His grip on Viktor's hand tightens. "And I won't let it, even if it does come. I know what I want." _A gold medal_ , Viktor thinks to himself, pleased. _So driven_.

They continue on in silence for a while. Yuuri's hand is so soft, so warm, and he finds himself playing with it on the long drive back to Hasetsu. _Pinky_ , he thinks, wiggling it and watching Yuuri's face flush in the dark of the car. _Thumb. Index finger—his nails are long_. He is assaulted by an image of them curling into his back, and he has to dismiss it and calm himself. _Middle finger. Like he would ever use it, this polite Japanese man._ He pauses at the last. _Ring finger. It's empty. Too empty._

The decision is made by the time they fall into his bed back at Hasetsu and fall asleep, still holding each other.

* * *

Yuuri's gone running when he wakes in the morning, so he settles with chatting lazily with Mari at the breakfast table. He knows his soulmate must have woken up early, because he's already dropping his chopsticks with breathless laughter as he eats.

"Sorry," he apologizes as he knocks over the centerpiece, "My soulbond is unforgiving. I hardly remember how to walk straight, anymore." He's struck by sudden, eager curiosity. "What was Yuuri like, when he came home to Hasetsu? Was his hangover awful?"

Mari eyes him with wary surprise as Hiroko bustles off to the kitchen. "He never mentioned anything," she replies slowly. For some reason, Viktor feels he's invaded foreign space for the first time since arriving in Japan.

"What about you? Have you met your soulmate? How drunk do you get?" He asks cheerfully, and realizes just as quickly it's a mistake. His mouth is too large, too careless, and he longs for Yuuri to soften him and his blows. Mari shuffles the plates.

"I was too excited when I met my soulmate," she admits, "And now he won't really interact, maybe because of it. We see each other every once in a while, and it's just…" she shifts and stares off into a corner. "Alcohol is a depressant, too, you know." Viktor feels his heart jump into his throat. He's never considered it, never let it come into his head. His soulbond's intoxication has always been a high for him, always. "I have to admit that we're all scared of Yuuri finding his soulmate—terrified that his mind won't handle the intoxication well if they spend too long apart, because he's an anxious guy and sometimes when he drank with us as a teenager, he'd panic rather than be a fun drunk. Luckily, I think his tolerance is pretty high. Still, as I'm sure you know, he panics a lot." She eyes him from the side. "You're saying he met his soulmate?"

He hadn't _told_ them? Why? Was he embarrassed? Yuuri was excruciatingly private, even with people he loved. Viktor settles for nodding, and Mari takes in a deep breath.

"Well," she muses, "He was very upset when he came back. We all thought it was about his career, and I think that's all he talked about with mom, but I suppose..."

His _career_? Viktor is hit with a sickening realization that makes his head spin more than it already has been in the past hour.

 _Alcohol is a depressant, too, you know_.

He stumbles to his feet. Yuuri, he has to find Yuuri.

Yuuri, who for the first several months of them knowing each other treated him like his foot was halfway out the door at all times. Yuuri, who is miserably odd and possessive at the mere mention of the word soulmate. Yuuri, who panics and lives in his own mind and is underconfident, who's still so smooth in movement when drunk that it's almost impossible to believe that he is. Yuuri, who's never verbally acknowledged that they are bonded at the core of them.

 _"You know my history. Of course the soul bond wouldn't affect me."_

 _"It's my fault, I forgot that you'd never had a lover."_

Yuuri is on the ice when he finds him, spinning in harried circles.

"Viktor," he says in greeting, and moves to the wall. "Watch me try—"

"Ssstupid," he feels himself slurring. His hand finds Yuuri's arm, and it becomes marginally easier to talk. "You're глупый. дурачить." "You taught me those words," his soulmate says incredulously, mildly offended but mostly surprised, "You've been teaching me Russian for months. Are you really going to use them like I don't understand?" "Well apparently дорогой and моя звезда and Моё золотце haven't gotten across to you," the legend huffs in half-serious fury. _Darling. My star. My gold._ Yuuri's arm slides from beneath Viktor's grip as he moves backwards easily on the ice, his face flushing and eyes tenderly devastated. "You know what those mean, don't you?" Viktor demands, and then softens. "Don't you, Yuuri?" He grabs Yuuri by the shoulders, leaning out embarrassingly far over the rail, and smoothly reels him back in. "Come back. I want to be fully competent for this conversation. This has gone on long enough."

"What—" Yuuri begins hesitantly, but Viktor's having none of it.

" _Soulmate_ ," he hisses. The Japanese skater flinches at the mere mention of it. "You know you've found him."

"I haven't," he's shaking his dark head wildly, "And I'd choose you, Viktor, please let me. Please let me," he finishes, half heartbroken. "I love… I love…" He's breaking off in huffs of frantic breath that solidify in the chill of Ice Castle's air.

"Calm down, моя звезда," he says into the tense silence that follows. "Come off the ice." Viktor meets him at the door, takes his hand, reverently unlaces his skates at the bench.

When Yuuri is in his socks, clutching his head between his hands and resolutely refusing to look at his coach, Viktor lightly pinches at his parted knees with both hands. Yuuri startles, but looks to him. "Viktor," he whispers.

"We should've had this conversation months ago. I was arrogant." He frowns. "And you were under-confident. How on earth did you not notice that we were soulmates? I was a ridiculously giddy _drunkard_ for the first few weeks I was in Hasetsu, before we got physical. I have literally been naked and sprawled across you more times than I can count, Yuuri, what were you thinking?" Those brown eyes are locked onto him, Yuuri's knees locked in their position. "The first few months after the last Grand Prix without you were _agony_. Yakov was ready to kill me, even if he did understand that I was ridiculously hungover."

"We," Yuuri breathes, " _We_ are?"

"Do you not remember the first time we met?"

"You asked me for a commemorative photo and I left in shame," Yuuri points out. "You had no idea who I was, and I'd utterly failed in competition. I felt sick and unsteady for the rest of the day. I could barely talk to Celestino normally."

" _Exactly_ ," Viktor responds pointedly, and Yuuri's jaw drops. "It took me a while, but by the banquet I'd figured it out."

Yuuri flushes. "We could've… at the banquet?"

 _We could've made love?_ _Да, черт возьми_ , Viktor thinks to himself, _I was already yours, and I'd hardly even talked to you yet_. He presses his forehead, frustrated, to Yuuri's knee.

"I've loved you for so long, and you thought… what? That I was playing with you and that my soulmate was somewhere else, with me ignoring them?"

"I knew you loved me," Yuuri replies, biting his lip, "I just thought that it'd end, at some point, and you'd go back to Russia. Go back to your career. To skating. To not having to deal with the soulbond, because your soulmate in Russia would be right there."

"You think my soulmate is in Russia?"

"Well, after the Rostelecom cup!" Yuuri protests. "You acted like coming back to Japan after that was stressing the soulbond!"

"Because I'd left my soulmate for the first time in months," Viktor asserts. "Because I'd left _you_ in Russia."

"Does Yurio know?" The Japanese skater asks suddenly, horrified and color draining from his tan face. "He's going to kill me. I took you from him. I assumed my skating and pure luck did it."

"Oh, Yurio knows." The champion remembers that uncomfortable conversation very well, held in terse Russian on the night of the boy's arrival.

" _You are being disgusting_ ," the younger skater had growled after they were apart from Yuuri for less than an hour, " _Pull yourself together and don't get drunk off of a PIGGY_." There had been one more thing. " _And stop flaunting it!"_

Flaunting it. He kisses his student's calf, and Yuuri shivers.

"Everyone else thought I was being ridiculously obvious, you know. You're the only one that had no idea."

"My family didn't know," Yuuri halfheartedly protests.

"Because they assumed you'd tell them if it were true!" Viktor laughs.

"Phichit did ask," Yuuri admits quietly. "He said I wasn't behaving normally."

"And then you miraculously realized that we were soulmates?" Viktor prompts. "Please tell me the thought at least crossed your mind, even if it didn't stick."

"I told him that I loved you." His voice is hushed. "And that I didn't care about soulmates."

Warmth spreads in the pit of his belly, his world tilting sweetly on its axis. Viktor feels strange, and a conversation he'd had with Yakov flits across his mind.

" _No one loves me_ ," he had told his coach. _No one even knows me._

" _Everyone loves you_ ," the man had replied gruffly. " _Did you not hear the cheers when you took the gold? Do you not see their eyes on you?"_

" _They love the idea of me,"_ he'd said, " _My skating forces them to. Until someday, when it won't anymore."_

" _Your soulmate will love you someday,"_ Yakov said quietly. " _That usually works out well_." Yakov's love hadn't. When Viktor had been in the depths of his soulmate induced hangover, Yakov had been harsh, because he understood better than anyone else how it felt.

 _They'll be forced to_ , Viktor had thought to himself. _Us being in love will be expected, because of the bond—us touching will be a necessity. It won't surprise anyone._

Yuuri had still been surprised. Surprised that Viktor had chosen him. Pleasantly surprised that they were soulmates. Surprised that Viktor felt anything through their bond at all, even now.

"You wanted me," he realizes in a hushed voice. "You would have stayed with me, even if it meant turning away from your soulmate and never experiencing the tipsy buzz of being with them? Even if you always thought I was ready to leave you, that I was _teasing_ you with the idea of my soulmate being out there waiting for me? You would have been hungover for me?"

Yuuri doesn't answer. It says everything for him.

"Well," Viktor hums, patting his soulmate's flushing face jovially, "I declare morning practice cancelled."

"I had katsudon yesterday," Yuuri explains, his tone wary, "I should probably exercise."

"Oh, we will, дорогой." He smiles lightly and stands, "In bed."

* * *

There are several realizations after that.

"I hugged _everyone_ after the Rostelecom cup," Yuuri is scandalized over dinner a week after their heart to heart, "And I threw up in the airport toilet. I thought it was nerves—I was drunk out of my _mind_."

* * *

"I didn't even talk to Viktor," Yuuri announces cheerfully to the other skaters, and beer is spewing from Viktor's lips.

"You don't _remember_?"

"You'd had so much champagne," Christophe laughs. "You were absolutely drunk."

"Just a little champagne," Viktor says, still reeling with it, "I saw you with the same empty glass every time I looked over from interviews and conversations."

"A different empty glass every time, maybe," Christophe hints.

"Celestino counted twenty," Phichit pipes in. "He said Yuuri was ridiculously drunk off of it."

"You were _actually drunk?_ " Twenty glasses of champagne, and the soulbond reacting from their first meeting—no wonder Yuuri had seemed so out of it that evening. Suddenly, his demure fiancé dancing on a pole makes so much sense. Suddenly, Yuuri having no idea they are soulmates makes so much more sense.

"What, Viktor, you thought it was just because of you?" Christophe teases. "You're not that special, hmm?"

"I almost took advantage of you," Viktor blurts, horrified, "I tried to take you to my _room_. Дерьмо! Дерьмо."

"I am interested in this topic," Phichit announces eagerly, "Please continue." His fingers are dancing over his phone.

"SHUT UP!" Yurio screams, slamming his hands on the table. "Shut UP, you disgusting old pervert!" Otabek pats him calmly on the arm, which Viktor stores in his mind for later before he is distracted.

"We talked?" Yuuri's innocent shining eyes are turned on him.

"You tried to have sex with him?" Minako asks, a little _too_ interested. "The first time you met?"

"How unfair," Christophe complains sensuously, "You're such a playboy. Take some responsibility, Viktor."

"I _am_ ," the champion skater insists, half serious, and then all eyes are on their rings and the whole restaurant is clapping for them at Phichit's behest.

* * *

Viktor expects the soul bond to be more merciful as they age. But even Yuuri leaving to coach for a few hours leaves him flushed and dazed and wanting. His phone rings.

"On the way home," Yuuri huffs across the line. "God, does the bond ever just make you _hot_? I'm burning up and I'm just trying to walk back."

"I'm drunk," Viktor informs him abruptly. "And naked."

"Oh," comes the strangled noise across the line from his husband.

"See you soon," the skating champion promises, pinching his lips to pass a kissing noise over the phone, "I expect you to help me out."


	2. Petnames

_A/N: This AU is one where all of your soulmate's nicknames for you, or names they repeatedly call you, are put on your skin at birth._

 _If you have an idea for a soulmate AU, please let me know through review and I might write a oneshot for it. I am trying to avoid the ones that I repeatedly see (your soulmate's name tattooed on your arm, a timer counting down until you meet, you get colors when you first touch, etc), but other than that I'm wide open and ready for inspiration! Hit me._

Pet Names

"They're _beautiful_ ," Yuuko whispers to him the first time he lets her see. "What do they say?"

He twists his shirt in his hands. "For some of them I'm not sure."

"I see 'my katsudon,'" she giggles. "Yuuri! I wish you'd let me see them sooner." He slips his shirt back over his head, even while shaking it gently. Baring your soulmarks in Japan is rude, and could even be dangerous. It's wrong to tempt fate. For a time, he hadn't wanted Yuuko to see—for a time, he'd wanted her to call him _my katsudon_ without knowing it sat delicately between his collarbones. But he'd even heard it, the first time Nishigori had called her _ice princess_ , the first time he'd teased her with _protector of the weak_ and her face had flushed marvelously. The two belonged, from the _darling wife_ that sat on Yuuko's knee to the _stupid softie_ that was plastered to the back of Nishigori's neck. Yuuko's soul marks are all over her arms and legs, but they can't begin to compare to the swathes of them on Yuuri.

His left and right arms are all winding Cyrillic, spotted with the occasional English phrase. Short, surprisingly raunchy French words freckle his upper back, Danish dots his spine, only to sweep into delicate but sloppy kanji on the front of his chest. Mari tries to wipe _Greek_ off of his neck one morning before looking closer and apologizing.

"Isn't Greek a dead language?" She mutters to herself after they find the odd symbols in an old textbook, and Yuuri apologizes and starts wearing turtlenecks. They're warmer on the ice anyways. Mari never mentions soulmarks to him again—and he never mentions them to her, not after seeing _bitch_ carved harshly into her stomach. It's rare, but sometimes soulmates aren't meant to be.

"You're going to be so loved, Yuuri," Yuuko tells him fondly, placing a hand to his covered chest. "There's not a single kanji here that isn't filled with affection. You deserve someone like that." The young man doesn't agree—but he doesn't disagree.

* * *

"Whoa," Phichit says, swiftly covering his eyes after walking in on Yuuri in their room in Detroit one afternoon. "I'm sorry, Yuuri. I swear I didn't see… much."

Yuuri blushes, feels awkward. "It's all right."

"If it makes you feel better," Phichit says, "I have no kanji, so it's probably safe to share with me. I'm definitely not it for you, even if we're meant to be best friends for life. And in what I briefly saw, I don't think you've got any Thai in there."

"Ankle," Yuuri mutters.

"Seriously?" His warm brown gaze flickers down. "Do you want it translated?"

"คนดี," Yuuri tries to say, his tongue tripping over the unfamiliar word. "My good girl, is what I think the dictionary told me? I feel like that must be wrong. Is it a compliment?"

"It means 'my love,'" Phichit tells him, eyes softening, "It's what the King calls the skater. I have it too," he chuckles, lifting one pinky, and Yuuri's heart goes out to him. "It's my favorite." They press their matching soulmarks together, get dressed, and return to the ice rink together, feeling gloriously bound. _They're not just for connecting soulmates,_ Yuuri realizes with warm wonder. _They're for everyone_.

"What's your favorite?" Phichit asks him as they watch The King and the Skater for the third time together later that night.

"I'm not sure," Yuuri admits.

"What's your _least_ favorite?" Phichit presses in amusement, and the Japanese boy covers his eyes in pure embarrassment, flipping up his palm to show the tiny English print on his right heartline. " _Little_ _stripper_! Yuuri, you're a walking scandal! When did you become a stripper? It's so visible, too!"

"I'm _not_ ," Yuuri protests fervently, and watches in abject fear as Phichit reaches for his ever constant companion: his phone. "Phichit, don't, Phichit—"

* * *

"Sorry," Celestino says, "The university wants one of your soulmarks to confirm your identity for paperwork. Can you pick a… less private one? Maybe the one with your name?"

"That's not possible," Yuuri blurts, thinking about where that particular kanji sits. "What requirements does the one I pick have to fulfill?"

"Easily accessible," Celestino muses, "And not something difficult to recognize." Yuuri's head is already spinning; he thinks of his left elbow, the spray of—is it German?—that falls over his knuckles.

"Please just pick for me," he replies in a rush, and offers his left hand.

"How many languages do you _have_ ," is what Celestino chokes out. "Good lord, is that Latin? I'm sorry, Yuuri, but your soulmate is a bit dramatic." He can't even _see_ the embarrassingly long endearment that splays across Yuuri's hip, a combination of kanji and Cyrillic that he only knows belongs together because one doesn't make sense without the other, or the one on the shell of Yuuri's left ear that actually got him scolded by an onsen visitor from India, who insisted _there are children here, young man, cover that_!

"I'm sorry," he murmurs miserably, but suddenly Celestino is smiling.

"I found the one I like." He taps at the top of Yuuri's wrist, where a simple _tesorino_ sits. "That's essentially what I call my wife."

"Does she like it?"

He laughs. "It's on her forehead, so the answer to that is a solid _no_. Headbands used to be her only style—until I called her that for the first time and she slingshot one at me." He pats Yuuri on his right, gloved hand. "You've got an impressive collection. I can't imagine what soulmarks your mate is going to have."

* * *

Viktor has three words, and only three. His name is draped proudly at the back of his neck in beautiful Cyrillic, a soulmark he displays every time he skates. A small collection of lines sits primly above his navel, a complex word that his scandalized and blushing Japanese neighbor staunchly refuses to translate. And finally, engraved into the skin over his heart, sits one English word: _coach_.

That one never fails to amuse him. Who calls their soulmate a _coach_? What could he possibly coach in? When he first began to show immense talent for ice skating, it became clear that it would have to be the sport; but isn't it scandalous, to be in love with your coach? Viktor can't imagine coaching changing his life much, can't imagine himself imparting wisdom with his harshness and loose tongue and forgetful mind.

Then Yuuri Katsuki goes and blows everything to pieces. He's drunk. He's not even speaking in _English_ , though Viktor has to admit the soulmark on his stomach almost _burns_ at the foreign words. But he flings his arms about Viktor and says the dooming sentence: "Be my coach!" No one wants Viktor to retire, not without besting him—no one has ever asked him to coach. Katsuki Yuuri is the first, and Viktor realizes very rapidly that he wants him to be the last. The banquet is maddening—Christophe barely manages to keep the Japanese skater's turtleneck on and his soulmarks preserved, though they still dance together on the pole. Even with just the Japanese skater's gloves removed, Viktor is awarded a generous helping of minutely tattooed skin.

Someone was going to love Yuuri very much—and Viktor already wanted it to be him. But he will wait—he will _hope_ that the drunk skater asks him to coach again, because this time Viktor will respond with a resounding _yes_.

* * *

"Let's look up our marks together!" He cheerfully tells Yuri several months later. "What online dictionary should we use?"

The blond fairy nearly spits at him. "How can you not know what they mean at this point? You're so old!"

"Japanese is a complex language," Viktor scolds gently. He doesn't want to admit that he's being sentimental, that he has always held out that it would be something unbearably beautiful, beautiful enough to make up for the fact that he only has _three words_.

"It's not that difficult," Yuri growls, and Viktor notes with glee that he's got a Japanese translator _bookmarked_.

"So your soulmate is from Japan too, Yuri, is that it?" It's worth the way the delinquent child essentially kicks over a table to get confirmation. What are the odds?

He lifts his shirt and Yuri briefly traces the shape into his phone.

"That's _disgusting_ ," is all the young skater snaps after a few moments. Peering over his short companion's shoulder, he has to disagree. "I would never let anyone call me that!"

"And what does your soulmate call you?"

"Tiger," the blond announces smugly.

"Among other things, I'm sure."

"That's it," Yuri insists dangerously, and Viktor lets him have his privacy.

It _is_ beautiful, he thinks, and fitting. It does not stop the fear that settles in his stomach—what if his soulmate wasn't around long enough to call him other things? The Japanese skater could have died in a plane crash, he could have cracked his head open on the ice (god knows he fell enough), he could be stumbling lost through the dangerous jungles and forests of his homeland.

He voices these dramatizations to Christophe, who huffs daintily and holds out two beautiful fingers. "One, Viktoor, you're not even sure this boy is your soulmate. Two, Japan is nothing like the wilderness that you've described. You should actually visit, no?"

Viktor dismisses the idea of going halfway around the world just to flash the kanji on his stomach to a near stranger and hope they'd want to call him that someday.

Then, there is a video, and it reminds him of the word that is scrawled over his heart— _coach_. Of course it would come to that. Katsuki Yuuri is a skater who has barely entered his prime, and Viktor is a world-renowned champion who needs an excuse to retire. Yuuri had _asked_ him to be his coach again, and that's all it takes to load the plane and fly off.

* * *

" _Clothes_ ," is all his (potential) soulmate can squeak out before he's collapsing to the floor of the springs, hands over his eyes. Viktor has never talked to a quieter man than Yuuri's father, who gives him a dim little smile and mentions in halting English, _we don't show our soulmarks like that here._

Viktor wouldn't normally, either, but he'd wanted to impress. He'd covered up his kanji, hadn't he? Either way, Yuuri's scandalized reaction had prevented him from seeing it. At least the Japanese skater wasn't dead.

Over a warm dinner, he learns more about his (potential) soulmate and desperately tries to think of nicknames for this man. What would he call him? He affectionately thinks of all of the things Russians normally use, but instead the first nickname that falls from his careless mouth is _little piggy_. Not ideal, he supposes, but it will have to do.

Yuuri has no reaction. It's distressing, but many people don't get their hopes up for a soulbond from just one nickname. The Yuuri in front of him seems like a calm man, one who doesn't react to much; even at the banquet, spinning about the pole, his face had been oddly serene. Potentially Viktor just can't read his reactions.

He realizes quickly that it is not hard to read Yuuri's reactions, because most of them are a loud and immediate _what are you doing please no_. There are two things that Yuuri absolutely won't allow: letting him into his room, and joining him in the baths without his clothes.

"Why not?" Viktor pouts. "Everyone wears cover-ups anyway! I won't see the soulmarks."

"They. Are. _Everywhere_ ," is his student's firm reply. "It is never happening."

Time passes, and Viktor almost forgets the soulbond. Being Yuuri's coach is oddly enjoyable, surprisingly close and tender. Though the Japanese skater can be distant, he is never anything but genuine. He panics and is honest and is patiently, affectionately amused by many of Viktor's antics. So Viktor forgets, for a while, at least until after the Hot Springs on Ice competition, when he flings two arms about Yuuri and excitedly tells him, "Excellent job, my katsudon, they loved you!"

The _flush_ that immediately darkens Yuuri's entire body highlights his few visible soulmarks, and they're stumbling apart with a stuttered, " _Viktor_ , please!"

His student won't look his way, even though he knows the champion's gaze is sharp on him.

"What do you call me in _your_ head, Yuuri?" It is quiet and Viktor feels the need to approach in the dim lights of the street. "Yuuri, this is important."

"Nothing too familiar," his student struggles to get out, clutching at his own hands and fidgeting with his glasses. "Nothing… that assumes anything."

 _Say it_ , he urges mentally. _Say it, Yuuri, say one of them. There's only three._

But the awkward silence goes on, and the Japanese skater looks dejected, so finally he links their fingers together and they walk back to the onsen without saying anything at all.

* * *

He says it at the Kyushu championship, right before he goes out on the ice.

"Don't forget what I told you about your leg on that triple," Viktor reminds him at the last moment, and Yuuri just nods, nervously looking back out onto the rink, before he throws the champion his waterbottle and says distractedly,

"Thank you, coach."

Viktor certainly doesn't take his eyes off of him. He tries to stay calm, tries to remember that Yuuri has _hundreds_ of nicknames and he's only confirmed one or two of them. The _coach_ that is carved in him makes him scold Yuuri as he comes out of the performance, makes him not mention it in the locker room, makes him focus on Yuuri's treatment of his excited fan before he dares to think about the topic.

Minami gets the autographs of his two idols, but hangs around after the other boys.

"I've thought this before," he's jabbering, "But we both have Cyrillic, don't we, Yuuri?" The blonde is gesturing wildly at the Japanese skater's arm, which is completely covered. "I saw it once, I'm sorry, last year! And I was just so excited to share something with you."

Yuuri has been so stiff about the soulmarks, so stiff in _general,_ that Viktor expects this conversation to end immediately. He should have known better—he's always, always surprised by this man.

"I wonder if we match," is all Yuuri replies warmly, "Do you want to show me one of them in the locker room?"

Minami can hardly contain himself. _Viktor_ can hardly contain himself.

They're sitting alone in a car on the way back, and his hands grip the steering wheel far too harshly. Yuuri picks soundlessly at the car seat, and feels the tension rise.

"You have Cyrillic?" Viktor asks slowly, breaking it with all of the delicacy he can muster, "You have _Cyrillic_ and you didn't think to mention it to me?"

Yuuri rubs at his knuckles, his neck. "I do. I also have other languages, though."

"So you just have one or two words?" He reaches over at a stoplight, takes a tense and shaking Yuuri's hand, reaches his fingers under the glove. _I already have names for you. Let me see them._

"T-that's not where most of them are."

" _Most_ of them." He levels his gaze at his passenger. " _Most of them_ , Yuuri?"

"Arms," his student is saying in apology, "All over my arms."

"What language do you have the most of?" Viktor insists, innocently demanding, even when Yuuri gestures helplessly out the front window.

"The light is green."

"What language do you have the _most_ of?"

"Russian!" Yuuri confesses in agony, looking like he'd rather throw himself out of the moving car than continue the conversation. "But I swear, Viktor, I'm not—I would never try to—"

"I have kanji," Viktor interrupts him smoothly. He presses down on the gas at last and moves them forwards. "I think my soulmate is Japanese, Yuuri, I'm not sure I ever mentioned that to you."

"You," his student intakes a breath, "You didn't."

Out of the corner of his vision, Viktor watches streetlights dance over Yuuri's eyes. _He's looking for an answer_ , he thinks. So patiently, patiently, he lets his soulmate search.

"I'm not putting any pressure on you," Viktor tells him lowly when they reach home, "I just want you to actually _consider_ it, Yuuri."

The shy man is usually so eager to return to his room alone, but this time he bites at his lip, reaches out for Viktor's sleeve.

"Will you—will you still be my coach, if we are?" He hesitates. "If we're not?"

The world is small for Viktor, the tatami floors, the moonlight streaming in the window, Yuuri's tender eyes locked on his own. Everything falls into this moment—he had thought three words were too few to express love for a soulmate, but he's realizing that coming from Yuuri, those three words are almost too much. There's love encased in them, love and respect and adoration and _hope_.

"Of course." He draws his student in, holds him, presses his lips to the dark hair. "Of course I will be, Yuuri, always." His soulmark burns, and he refuses to let go. They repeat the conversation over and over, as much as Yuuri needs.

 _Be my coach until I retire._

 _I hope you never retire._

* * *

"What do you call your lovers in French, Christophe?" It's unusual for them to talk on the phone, but the Swiss representative had needed advice on dealing with a new Russian skater at his rink. Christophe had initially been a tad bitter over his defeat at Cup of China, though glad to see Yuuri's entrance to the Grand Prix, and the two top skaters had fallen into idle chatter.

"In or out of bed?"

"Oh, is there a difference?"

When he tries one of his new favorites out on a sweetly blinking Yuuri later that day at Minako's ballet studio, the dance instructor nearly breaks the barre.

"I doubt Yuuri has ever even _thought_ about doing that with his mouth," she hisses to him while the object of Viktor's affections obliviously continues his stretches in the background. "Do you know what you're saying?"

"I didn't, but it has a nice sound to it, no?"

She glowers at him, but finally shakes her head and sighs, "Left shoulderblade."

Viktor's heart skips a beat. "What?"

"I'm not going to repeat myself," she sings, and spins back into practice.

* * *

Viktor perfects the sound that Hiroko uses constantly around Yuuri's father, has Yuuko help him shape it and tone it. One day when Yuuri comes off the ice it slips out, maybe too early, but Viktor wishes he'd tried it _months_ ago because two seconds after it's said his tongue is in Yuuri's mouth and one hand is being led up the inside of a turtleneck to rest hotly against what he's assuming is the written match. Viktor is all too ready to oblige, to explore each other's skin, but when he starts to pull at his shirt Yuuri pulls away.

"We should wait," Yuuri heaves, cheeks pink, "We should wait until I've said—all of them. Just to be sure. _If_ I say all of them."

"Are you saying we can't be together until we've confirmed that we're soulmates?"

"Definitely not what I'm saying," Yuuri answers firmly, and shuts the changing room door.

* * *

"First of all," Yuuko tells him a week later, after one particularly satisfying hour in Ice Castle's changing room, "Besides being just six years old, my girls have no shame and know no boundaries, so I'm going to have to encourage you not to do that kind of thing in public. They will find you. They will post it online."

Viktor wonders briefly if Yuuri would be at all interested in that, but… he doubts it. He opens his mouth to ask a question and Yuuko, shaking her head, slips a finger over it.

" _Yes_ we can hear you. Which brings me to my second point: you should know what Yuuri's saying more than anything else." His student does mostly gasp in his native tongue; Viktor takes his struggle to concentrate and speak English as a compliment. Yuuko produces a pen and scrawls a symbol out onto his hand, but before she's done he already knows how the sweeping lines will fit together.

"Recognize it?" She prods gently, but he already feels his head bowing, his throat surprisingly tight. _Recognize it? It belongs to me._

"He usually doesn't call me that."

"Yuuri's not really the type to say it in public."

"I'm going to make him say nothing else for a week," Viktor promises, and heads straight home.

"моя любовь," he hums as he meets those brown eyes. "мое золото," he says, taking both hands in his. "сладкий," is the breath he presses into Yuuri's clothed shoulder as he leads them back to his room.

"I may have it all over me," Yuuri voices quietly when they're alone, "But I don't speak Russian." Viktor rolls up Yuuri's sleeve, lifts his student's arm to press his lips to it, and mouths another word atop the first swirling text. Любимая.

"Let me teach you."

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Me: Don't just pretend you know other languages and their endearments! Show some respect._

 _Also me: Google translate 'bae' into Russian._

 _So. Anyway._

 _Fantasy stories lover: Thanks much!_

 _Kagamine Himeka-chan: Ooh, I like the drug part. My hope was that it was still enjoyable despite an AU that might have been hard to get into, so I'm glad to hear from you!_


	3. Close

_A/N: Soulmate AU where you temporarily take over the body of the person your soulmate cares about the most and feels closest to. It can happen multiple times after you meet in real life._

 _As always, i_ _f you have an idea for a soulmate AU, please let me know through review and I might write a oneshot for it. I am trying to avoid the ones that I repeatedly see (your soulmate's name tattooed on your arm, a timer counting down until you meet, you get colors when you first touch, etc), but other than that I'm wide open and ready for inspiration! Hit me._

Close

When Yuuri comes to, his whole body feels oddly compressed and close to the ground. Everyone had told him this would happen at some point, but it was another thing to _live_ it, to know he resided in someone else's body, a person that was precious to his soulmate. The person closest to them. Why was someone so precious lying on the ground? He tries to stand, and his nails scrabble on the floor as he trips over his own tail.

 _A dog_ , Yuuri realizes to himself, _The person my soulmate feels closest to right now… is a dog_.

"Makkachin, время отхода ко сну," a familiar voice calls from around the corner, and Yuuri knows he does not like where this is going. _Viktor Nikiforov_ is cooing at him in Russian, ushering his tiny body across the cold wooden floors of the champion skater's home in the motherland. He's only met his idol once a few weeks ago, in the most shameful way he could have anticipated, but meeting your soulmate once was all it took for the body exchanges to start. _Viktor Nikiforov? No, this isn't happening. Please don't figure it out!_ He internally hyperventilates, but it just comes out as puppy panting. _You can be a dog,_ Yuuri encourages himself in a blind panic. _You don't even have to be a different person! You don't even have to talk! You're lucky, really._

Then they're in Viktor's room, after he's tripped over his furry feet more times than he can count, and Yuuri realizes he is _not_ lucky, _oh no_ , because the world champion sleeps mostly in the nude and apparently expects his _dog_ to join him.

"вверх, Makkachin," he is commanding in Russian, patting the bed sweetly. "сопровождать, малютка.

Yuuri decides to bound off around the house instead, which apparently isn't too out of character, because his idol gives laughing chase, exclaiming things in his native tongue and wrassling the dog until Yuuri's small body is too tired to fight anymore. Viktor hauls him to the bed, deposits him into the covers, and murmurs to him in lilting Russian until the gentle strokes on the dog's ears slow and the champion falls asleep. Yuuri lays awake, sees the sleeping features of his on screen idol for the first time, and in the quiet, close serenity of the room, concludes there must be a massive mistake.

Him as the Russian skater's soulmate is insane, for one thing, but this famous man, this successful and brilliant and worshipped man, feels closest to his _dog_? Where are his lovers? Where are his fans? Where is the fabulous Christophe Giacometti? His coach? It seems incomprehensible. He nudges and snuffles at the hand that lays prone upon him, till the ice blue eyes glint again in the moonlight.

"холодно?" The older man questions, voice cloaked in sleep, and only pulls the dog closer. Yuuri feels lips press against his wet nose softly, sees the eyes shutter closed, hears his heart break a little.

 _Someone should love you more than this_ , he thinks, _Though I don't understand why the universe has chosen me. This can't be right._ _What am I meant to do?_ When he wakes the next morning, he goes to the rink and skates.

* * *

He still skates every morning, every afternoon, every night, for the while after that, but nothing is the same, not since the Grand Prix. Home seems the only option, somehow. So Yuuri is headed back to Hasetsu, though packing up his life in Detroit is harder than he had imagined.

Phichit is perched curiously on his bed when Yuuri comes into their apartment for the final box and to roll up the last of his prized Viktor Nikiforov posters. His tan face has the oddest expression, like the room is foreign to him. Yuuri supposes it is; they've never lived in Detroit without each other, and now he is leaving. The Japanese skater is overcome suddenly, and makes his way awkwardly over to his best friend.

"I'm going to miss you." He swallows. "Promise you'll pick up when I Facetime you?"

"Yes," his roommate offers plainly, almond eyes sweeping over Yuuri's face. "Are we…" His voice is low and serious. "Are we lovers?"

Yuuri chuckles. "I know that's your favorite scene from The King and the Skater, Phichit, but it's hardly right for our goodbye." He checks his watch. "Do you want to watch it one last time, is that what you're saying? My plane doesn't take off for another eight hours."

"I would," Phichit agrees frankly. "Let's… do something together."

"All right. One last selfie, then, too." He pulls himself up onto the bed, and reaches for Phichit's laptop. His best friend is awkwardly patting his pants pockets, and Yuuri slips a quick hand in Phichit's jacket and produces the sleek phone. "You'd think that with how much you love this, you'd keep better track of it," he teases. He nudges the Thai skater, holds up the phone. "Smile!"

Phichit is the king of selfies, but he doesn't even look at the resulting image, keeping wide brown eyes trained on Yuuri's face.

"We're very close," he says slowly, softly.

Yuuri's gaze drops, and he thinks he feels _shame_ bloom in his chest. "Yeah," he agrees. "I'm sorry I'm leaving you. But I just… I have to go home…"

"Don't let me spoil things," his roommate interrupts awkwardly. "I'm ruining this for you, I'm sorry. Just… enjoy your last moments with your…"

"Best friend," Yuuri says fiercely. "You will always be my best friend, Phichit. I hope I'm a good enough friend for you to consider me one of yours."

"I'm sure you are," he asserts with a peculiar half smile. Yuuri moves towards him, but his usually waving arms are oddly static, till the Thai skater starts suddenly and is hugging him back like they haven't already done it a million times before. They pull apart and Yuuri hurriedly brushes off tears.

"Sorry. You know how easily I cry."

"Let's watch the movie," Phichit replies with an unsteady, unsure smile. The boys situate themselves around the laptop, and the introduction has barely started when he feels the Thai skater staring at him.

"Yeah?"

"Can I…" his eyes are darting and Yuuri pushes up his glasses, unsure. "Can I put my head on your shoulder?"

"You don't even have to ask," the Japanese man laughs in return. "Why couldn't you?" His best friend leans over slowly, not even putting down his full weight, and Yuuri flicks him affectionately on the forehead, a habit he developed directly from the Thai skater himself. "I thought I was the shy one." That gets no reply, but the other boy settles in further.

It's the first time he's ever seen Phichit fall asleep in the middle of his favorite movie, but their last few hours together had certainly been strange, if not meaningful. When Yuuri jostles him awake for one last farewell before he heads off to the airport, Phichit moans and groans and flings his arms around his roommate, and has already tweeted him three times before his plane takes off.

* * *

Seeing Viktor Nikiforov in his onsen is the last thing that Yuuri expects. His anxious mind has already played for him the worst possible scenario: that Viktor somehow _knows_ he became his dog and is here to shame him, to reject him. It's almost as terrifying as the reality: Viktor saw him skate and traveled halfway across the world to coach him.

"Tell me everything about you," the Russian skater is urging him sensuously, fingers on his wrist, his chin, backing him up against the unpacked boxes in his new room at Yu-topia. Yuuri is shrieking and halfway out of the room before the champion skater can go any further. "What? Why are you running away?"

Their following encounters are equally heart stopping and panic inducing. Yuuri has _no idea_ why Viktor thinks it's all right to chase him down and tackle him with blankets the night after he refuses to have a sleepover in his childhood bedroom, why he's so comfortable with pressing up so _close_ , why he insists on looping their arms together on the train on the way home from practice. Yuuri is always startling away, but Viktor pays it no attention, almost seems to double his efforts the more distant the Japanese skater tries to be. The audience doesn't even matter—at the Kyushu competition, he snags Yuuri in a hug before the frenzied media cameras and doesn't let go.

It's uncomfortable. It's exciting. It's terrible. It's the best thing that's ever happened to him.

Yuuri's not sure how to react, so he tries to calm himself and let it happen, let Viktor be his eclectic self, let this be their… friendship. It's certainly not merely a coach-student bond anymore.

A few days before they leave for the Cup of China, Yuuri brings him noodles after practice and suggests they watch a classic Japanese film together. They've settled in on Viktor's bed, with his fingers dancing lightly over Yuuri's knee, when the Russian skater tips over and nestles into his shoulder. It hardly takes any time for Yuuri to talk himself down from the panic anymore, and he just bounces the shoulder gently beneath the weight before feeling the need to voice something, anything: "I'm not Makkachin, you know." _Of course_ , he thinks, _Of course that's what my lips would say. I may as well confess the whole embarrassing story._

He feels his shoulders stiffen, his tongue tangle within his own mouth. Viktor is quiet for a moment, and then there is a blithe, "Do you not like me, Yuuri?"

"What?"

There's no hesitation, just flawlessly devastating execution in the way he repeats it. "Do you not like me, Yuuri?"

"Of course I do. Like you, I mean. You know that I—that I do." _More than I should_. The words come out in an unconvincing jumble. The heart shaped mouth is curling into a lazy smile.

"Sometimes," he says, "You don't much act it. I know that's not true—but it's something to practice, yes?"

Subdued, Yuuri bobs his head in embarrassed agreement. Relationships are a give and take, he knows that, he's been taught that so many times. A peace offering, that's what he needs, and Viktor has always wanted to know everything about him, so before he can think he's blurting, "Let's talk about personal things."

Viktor sits up immediately, eyes shining. "Really?"

"Y-yeah. Whatever you'd like."

"Have you had an exchange yet, Yuuri?" The skater asks innocently, because Viktor has never been one to shy away from taking action, and the younger whips his head around far too quickly to be natural.

" _No!_ No way. Definitely, definitely not." _I am not obsessed with you. I am not ridiculously jealous of your dog. I do not want to be your dog_. The idea of admitting that he's already basically slept with the Russian is not something he's ready to reveal.

He's a terrible liar, he knows, but Viktor just looks at him with bright blue eyes and a tilted head for a few moments.

"All right then," Viktor relents, sighing. "That's too bad."

The question is there, and Yuuri has to take it or forever hate himself. "Have you?"

His idol purses thin lips. " _Da_."

Yuuri blanches, trying to recover as calmly as possible. _There's a chance that he didn't actually see me. He could have switched with someone while I wasn't there, it's not unheard of_.

But all the nervous part of his mind can summon is: _Viktor knows, and he's not pleased._

"And you—met your soulmate."

Viktor's fingers stop dancing on his knee, and he presents a blinding smile. " _Da_." The smile rattles the Japanese skater's brain. Yuuri wants to ask him more, talk until his face turns blue, ask him if this is _okay_ , but Viktor is already speaking again, fingertip settled on his chin. "What would you do, Yuuri, if you never had an exchange?"

He looks to the corner of the tiny room. "Ah. Probably… assume I didn't have a soulmate."

"Do you want a soulmate, Yuuri?"

He swallows. "I want one. But I understand that sometimes… the universe doesn't pick correctly. And I don't think soulmates should be obligated to be together." _You don't have to be with me. Is that why you're here?_

"Really," Viktor replies carefully, flatly. "Do you think the universe might not be kind to you?"

 _I think the universe listened to me obsessing over you for the last ten years and made you my soulmate as a cruel joke._

"Was the universe kind to you?" He fires back in self preservation, and regrets it almost immediately.

"It's put me in an unfortunate situation with my soulmate. Other than that, the universe has been very generous." Gold medals. Women. Fame. Looks. Talent, so much talent, and the drive to use it. Even after that, the champion had so much more: blunt kindness and careless charisma, a rumbling laugh, a quirky sense of humor, a terrible taste in movies. Yes, the universe had been generous to Viktor Nikiforov; a kind of compensation, he supposed, for being bonded to Katsuki Yuuri, anxiety ridden and underwhelming in his skating abilities.

It takes everything in the Japanese man to say, "Maybe you should forget about your soulmate." _Leave if you want. Don't ruin everything you have._

 _Don't ruin me by staying before you go._

Viktor looks at him long and hard—there's a sharpness to it. "You've never had an exchange, Yuuri?" The student doesn't answer, just looks desperately down to the coverlets. Acknowledging that he knows, acknowledging that they are soulmates, means giving over every part of himself to this man: his skating, his career, his home, his heart, his bond. Having the following conversation would mean hearing the rejection, forcing himself to live in reality. Yuuri is rarely one to start a conversation. His idol wants to be his coach, at least for the year, and he will take anything he can get. Then, quietly, he hears the words, "Are you saying I should choose you instead?"

Yuuri bursts.

"I'm saying that nothing's keeping you here!" He doesn't want his traitorous lips to say the word _yes_ , so after a moment he starts babbling, a sad mixture of Japanese and English, but mostly what comes out is just _why are you still here? What do you want from me?_

Viktor lets him say it all, watches the tears form in his eyes that he refuses to let fall, and all the Russian replies with is a firm, "I want you to skate. Beautifully. Like I know you can, like your body is the music."

"Okay," Yuuri is saying, shakily, "Okay." Because skating is all he has ever known how to do; it's the best way to express himself. Finally, he starts to shuffle off the bed, close the laptop, but those fingers on his knee start circling again.

"You can stay here." Yuuri stares, opens his mouth for the rejection, but Viktor adds, "I want that from you too. If you're open to it."

Unfortunate. Viktor thinks their bond is _unfortunate_. But he's still willing to try.

Yuuri had thought they were like minded, at least in that they would accept nothing less than the best, wanted gold in the rink and out.

"I'm going to bed."

Just like the first time they met, Viktor watches him leave.

In the morning Yuuri rises and skates, and vows to be better. Viktor won't leave him. That doesn't make him _worthy_.

* * *

He gets silver at the Cup of China, and Viktor seems more than thrilled. He kissed him, afterwards, in front of everyone. _I'm getting better_ , Yuuri thinks.

"I wouldn't say today went as I'd planned," Viktor is saying, his voice tinged with a brusque regret, when they return to the hotel. Yuuri agrees—he'd wanted the gold, even if he believed that Phichit had earned it. "That's my fault, I know."

"It's mine," Yuuri insists stubbornly, "I should've practiced the flip more for my free skate."

Viktor laughs after a moment, tilting his head in a question. "And about what happened after the free skate?"

Yuuri flushes, considering. _Better than what I deserved._

"I enjoyed it," he hedges.

"Me too," Viktor replies simply, with warmth, and after Yuuri's showered he comes back to find the Russian skater curled up in covers on one side of Yuuri's bed. He rolls over jovially when Yuuri presses into the mattress beside him, flashes a grin that makes his student melt. "Can we talk? I understand that this might be confusing for you."

"Do you want sex?" Yuuri asks, and maybe it's too blunt because he's exhausted, but Viktor just stares at him from his pillow, silver fringe pooling under his face. It's the explanation Yuuri has come to, after months of Viktor being all over him, despite the way he knows the older skater feels. Maybe it's been difficult, in a world where soulmates are so revered, to find someone willing to consistently give him that without other things getting in the way.

Viktor's response is high and calm and dangerous. "I just want to be close."

His idol can be vague and careless and tends to keep most of his schemes to himself until the results he's wanted are achieved—Yuuri's never admired someone as much as him, and he's never been so afraid. He reaches out, and Viktor's face is real beneath his palm, warm.

"Who are you closest to?" Yuuri asks hazily, because it's been on his mind ever since he spent a night in Makkachin's body. _Who are you really closest to?_ Those blue eyes are on him, unending.

"You," is the soft reply in the dark.

Yuuri is already crying before he surges forward to kiss Viktor, crying because if it isn't true he's going to be broken but if it is true his heart is breaking for the man before him. Crying because since Viktor arrived in Japan and became his coach Yuuri's never exchanged again, not once, has stayed in his own body like that was the closest his soul could be.

 _I'm sorry_ , he says with his lips, _I'm sorry_. He doesn't know what he's apologizing for.

Viktor's palm is pressing hard on his chest and he's murmuring things in Russian, then in broken Japanese, _stop, Yuuri, stop_ and all Yuuri can think is _it's only been months, nothing should be so hard._

"We're soulmates," the Russian finally manages, panting gently, "I exchanged last year. Do you believe me?"

"I spent a night as Makkachin," Yuuri confesses.

Viktor's expression is the closest Yuuri has seen him to fear. "You can _do_ that? With a dog?" Then, choked, "After I came to Japan? Which night?"

"Not one where you brought a lover home," the Japanese skater replies, swatting at him.

"That's _not_ the problem," Viktor assures him, and Yuuri rolls his eyes because he can't think of another problem, but Viktor shifts smoothly to his back, hands to his face in exhaustion. "I thought I would have to convince you; I thought you'd never exchange, I thought the universe was laughing at me for hoping. Бог на небесах. And you never told me because…?"

"It was embarrassing," Yuuri breathes. "And I thought…" Viktor waits for him to finish, but not long enough to draw out the answer.

"You gave me _wrinkles_ ," Viktor complains promptly after the pause, "I _agonized_ over you."

"Just a few months ago you thought being my soulmate was _unfortunate_." He feels almost wrong for bringing it up, like it will break the spell of the day, like it will remind Viktor that he's just a silver medalist for now, like it will make him regret everything. "You can't have that many wrinkles."

Viktor takes Yuuri's cheek in his long fingers, presses their foreheads together, is almost harsh when he sighs coolly, "Never. I have never thought that, Yuuri."

Yuuri shifts uncomfortably against the sheets, hopes Viktor can't feel the heat rising in his skin. "So when you exchanged, you weren't disappointed?"

"Disappointed." Viktor laughs, smothers it in a pillow, leaves his face there so Yuuri can barely hear the next question. "Would it change your opinion of me, to know that I woke up in my own body and cried on Makkachin?" Yuuri's heart plummets, and he thinks he's going to cry at that revelation too until Viktor props himself up on his elbows and fiercely says, "Not like that, Yuuri. It was just… tender. More than I'd expected. My heart wasn't ready."

"When did you exchange? With who?" Yuuri questions, morbidly curious, but Viktor pulls a sheet up over the Japanese skater's face.

"Bedtime, now. We have to wake up in the morning."

"I want to know," Yuuri insists eagerly, struggling to see his mentor's face, but suddenly there are more covers and he's in a cocoon and a warm weight is pressing on him. "Viktor!" Even in the darkness, wrapped in layers, he hears the next words from the Russian's mouth too clearly.

"I'm fully aware that I sleep in the nude at home, Yuuri, and that Makkachin sleeps right next to me." A breath. "But you already knew that, didn't you?" He's so grateful that Viktor can't see his face, hopes desperately that the bedding muffles his squeak. "Bedtime, then."

"Yes," Yuuri agrees meekly.

* * *

The next morning, Viktor kisses him again in front of the bathroom mirror after they've brushed their teeth, like it's going to be happening every day. The mint is sweet shock on their breaths.

"Oh," Yuuri says, and Viktor rubs their noses together cheerfully.

"Mm hmm." Then they kiss some more, and the two are _very_ close.

They manage to make their flight with time to spare anyways, and settle in the airport with their things, though when Yuuri sees Phichit at a nearby terminal Viktor brushes him towards his best friend with a wave of his hand, smile growing underneath his designer sunglasses.

"Congrats again, Phichit," he tells him, and they talk for a while before his old roommate suddenly comes in close and whispers, scandalized,

"Is that a _hickey_?" Yuuri can't even answer him, but Phichit is already going off. "I know you two kissed, Yuuri, but wow. Congratulations to _you_. Can I tweet the hickey? Are you happy? If he leaves you when he finds his soulmate I'll skate over his fingers."

"Oh, that's not a problem," Yuuri is reassuring before he can think, spinning in the onslaught.

" _You two_ are it?" The Japanese skater shares his surprise. "Wait, _Viktor Nikiforov_ was in my body? No wonder I got gold this year—if he left one ounce of his talent in me I would've had to win."

"He exchanged with you?" Yuuri blurts.

"Oh, yeah. Right before you left Detroit, though I just knew it'd happened, not who it was. I assumed you two talked? It's hard to know, when you get shoved to the back of your own mind, I wasn't really conscious."

Yuuri is already staring back over to his soulmate, who pulls down his shades and _winks_. As if that wasn't enough, he lifts the hand not holding his phone in a half heart, blows a kiss through it.

"Oh my god," Yuuri moans. "He saw the posters."

* * *

"What's it like, being a dog?"

Yuuri shoves him and he spins back on the ice, laughing. He pulls Yuuri with him, and they leave beautiful shining trails as they dance at Ice Castle. Yuuri hadn't gotten the gold; it hadn't mattered.

* * *

 _A/N:I'm working on responding to everyone personally, but thanks to all for your support and suggestions! They mean so much to me and I'm getting great soulmate AU ideas._

 _Like, a large portion of this chapter looked suspiciously like PhichitxYuuri, even if it wasn't, and I was like, wait, am I into this? Am I really? But I'm not. They're too cute as best friends that talk while being covered in a mountain of hamsters._

 _neonprince: Aw, thanks. And thanks for the Russian info! I'm sorry, but English is all I know._

 _Midnightdreams33: First thing your soulmate has thought is already in the works, so look forward to it ;)_

 _Aqua Lilly: I might, at some point! I could see myself doing that._

 _guest: I'll muse on the blind and deaf thing for a while and play around with the concept- thank you!_

 _guest 2: yeaaaah. I'm not fluent in like any languages. Not even English. I'm scared to use their words._

 _Mikihiko Tada: Haha you caught me, I definitely was saying that about Yurio and Minami. Love is all around!_

 _qqsha: I'm so glad you agree! That's what I was going for :)_

 _animatronic 2.9: Thank you! Now you don't have to wait._

 _Phoenix Lumen: Working on the flower idea now! I'm still turning it around in my head. I'm glad you enjoyed it._

 _fantasy stories lover: I'm blushing. Thanks._

 _Lotus Sword: So glad you appreciate it! I'm trying hard to have character development and fit the soulmate thing into the actual storyline, because changing Yuuri on Ice too much would be a crime, it's so beautiful._

 _TheEpicWallflower: Don't die! I have more chapters. I love pining Victor the most._


	4. Little Thoughts

_A/N: This is a soulmate AU where your soulmate's first thoughts are written on your arm._

 _Hello friends. Yuuri on Ice season one is over and so is Christmas. I'm crying. It's fine._

 _If you have an idea for a soulmate AU, please let me know through review or PM and I might write a oneshot for it. I am trying to avoid the ones that I repeatedly see (your soulmate's name tattooed on your arm, a timer counting down until you meet, you get colors when you first touch, etc), but other than that I'm wide open and ready for inspiration! Hit me._

Little Thoughts

Viktor's parents had translated the kanji on his arm long before he could even read, and they refused to tell him what it said. When he was nine and managed to get on the frustratingly slow computer at the school library with the help of his teacher, he struggled with the translation for over two hours before finally managing it. A rumor always floats around that soulmarks are the first words soulmates speak to each other—and for some particularly verbal people, it is—but it's the first thought, and even at nine Viktor knew this.

 _My idol can be an arrogant bastard._

It hadn't made sense, at the time—he was good at ice skating already, but he wasn't a champion. Then, there was Yakov, and when he was 15 and winning all there was to win at his age, he saw the first poster of himself on sale at a tacky Russian souvenir store and realized what the words could mean.

 _My idol can be an arrogant bastard._

So he rejects it. Viktor smiles brighter, meets reporters at restaurants, invites his rink mates over to his house, dates a fan or two that declares themselves to be desperately in love. He is smooth, suave, and wide open in a way that only an inexperienced celebrity can be. Then. The reporters write about scandals, even the ones who texted him and came to his parties, drank the wine that a teenager shouldn't have. The fans expect him to be as regal and effortless off the ice as he is on it, are almost disappointed when he tries to drag them out shopping, fawns and squeals over Makkachin, is needily physical, so he bluntly and awkwardly breaks up with them at the end of the off seasons. He tries so very hard not to be arrogant.

The worst happens in his safe space, though. His rink mates whisper and stop when he opens the locker room door, snicker or stare in too much shock when he falls to the ice during particularly difficult moves. Yakov alone helps him up, gruffly. Yakov says nothing when his young protégé withdraws, when he comes to practice with red eyes and stained breath.

"You're too young to be drinking every day," is all his coach warns, so Viktor limits himself to the weekends and the older man no longer complains. Yakov shows him a picture when he is eighteen and drowning, an old and worn thing in black and white. "This is my twenty-fourth birthday. I was celebrating my third gold medal."

"Who's in the photo?"

"Lillia." He jabs gently at the timelessly beautiful young woman, hair in a signature tight bun. Then his fingers trace the face of the man beside him. "My best friend. Abram. My mother took the picture." The three of them are cramped in what is clearly a tiny bachelor's apartment, complete with a ratty couch.

"Did the country not throw their old skating hero a victory party?" Viktor laughs, eager to take in the deep but youthful scowl his coach used to sport.

"They did," Yakov replies, briefly. He stares purposely at the skater he is beginning to consider a second son. "I didn't go." The Russian pauses, waits.

But Viktor is young. The screams are still an elusive high to him, the ice still fresh and unchipped. Hope still brightens his eyes, and loneliness hasn't quite settled in his bones. So instead of understanding, the younger man cheerfully asks, "Why ever not?" Yakov refuses to answer, and instead waits.

 _I will not be an arrogant bastard_ , he tells himself as smiles at a reporter who he knows will record his every word and then twist them.

 _I will not be an arrogant bastard_ , he tells himself as he writes shorter and shorter responses to his stack of fan mail.

 _I will not be an arrogant bastard_ , he tells himself when his first love, a young German man who adores the idea of him, sees the kanji on his arm and hesitates on their way to bed but goes anyway because, well, living legend Nikiforov.

But Viktor is young.

Then Viktor is old.

 _My idol can be an arrogant bastard_ , his arm reads in kanji, and at 27 he agrees with those words wholeheartedly. He doesn't know how to stress over it; doesn't know if he _should_. No one challenges him. No one questions him. He can simultaneously get away with everything and nothing. His life is on display—everyone wants to know him, everything about him, but also expect him to keep parts of Viktor Nikiforov buried. A woman? A man? He can get _anyone_ in his bed, but there is hell to pay from the press and Yakov. The faces of some of his many competitors begin to blur; he makes so many promises, silent and aloud, that it's impossible to keep track of all of them.

"A commemorative photo?" Viktor shows all of his perfect teeth. His lips spread thin over them. It aches. For the first time in a long time, he briefly acknowledges that it does. Maybe the pain shows, because the fan turns and leaves.

"And that would be a fellow competitor," Yakov grumbles after the boy silently speeds away. Aside from the scruffy clothes and scratched glasses, the champion admits he should've noticed the official lanyard and pass, the suitcase with his gear. Viktor almost feels bad. Bad enough to subtly Google him in the silent ride to the banquet, to remember his name. But surely he'll be forgiven. No one stays angry or damaged by Viktor for long; they just fall back a safe distance and admire him from afar. Surely.

* * *

Viktor is not forgiven. The sixth place skater approaches him, glowing with champagne and _anger_.

"Listen," Viktor tries to start—is it an apology? Katsuki swats it away with a loose hand in the air.

"No, you listen," he says sloppily, and grabs Viktor's expensive collar. Yuri looks ready to begin a brawl. The rest of the elegant banquet hall isn't paying attention yet. "My name is Katsuki Yuuri."

"I know, I—"

"Hush," the other skater hums, a warm finger on his lips, which feel dry suddenly. "Hush. You talk all the time on TV and I can't talk back. My turn."

"Okay," Viktor agrees dumbly.

"Everybody always _tol_ ' me… that you'd end up being a… a-" he breaks off into several sharp syllables of Japanese that have Yuri's hackles rising, because he knows curse words in every language "-and I told them _no_. Look at him. He's _beautiful_ and he loves _poodles_ and one time in an interview he happily told off some reporter who only wanted to talk about jumps and not artistry, and another time they tried to get him to denounce a fellow skater for kissing another woman and he supported her and basically came out and _nobody_ paid any… attention." Viktor was nineteen. His PR manager had panicked, made him date a French supermodel for a month, forbidden him from all the social media that existed at that time. He hadn't needed to. Russia had ignored it entirely, desperately. Yakov remained bitterly silent throughout.

"That's true," Viktor agrees again, quietly, tries to get his mouth working, but silky words are being said _far_ too close to his ear.

"Secret time," the Japanese skater whispers.

"I thought we were already having secret time," he whispers back.

"I was ssstupid," his breath tickles, sends shivers down Viktor's spine, "To think that you'd even look at me. Know who I was. You're my idol and I'm just some… fan." Katsuki is angry at himself, the champion realizes.

"You're very memorable now," Viktor replies honestly.

"I'm _the best fan_." His eyes are in some kind of hazy, alcohol induced trance. They snap to a clarity as he pulls back to lock gazes with Viktor. "And you are an arrogant bastard." Viktor winces and Katsuki shakes his dark head. "Arrogant bastard." The words are surprisingly fond. "You _knew_ that."

"How can I make it up to you?"

"Don't _encourage_ him," Yuri hisses at his side in Russian, looking ready to stalk off. But Viktor is already willing to sign a hundred posters, kiss him or bed him, let him drunkenly piss on the gold medal, if he'd like. The intoxicated honesty is refreshing, addictive, easily enough to make tonight more exciting than the blur of the last five years.

At the interruption, Katsuki swivels his head, lays his sparkling eyes on the blond boy.

"Dance off," he murmurs softly, reverently, before exploding. "Dance off!" He scrambles away from Viktor, stopping only once during the pulling of a flabbergasted and infuriated Yuri Plisetsky to the middle of the banquet hall. "You'll dance with me too!" He shouts, seconds away from falling to the floor and starting a breakdance routine, "That's how you make it up to me!"

Mere minutes later, though it feels like hours, Yuuri dips him and he's seeing stars. He's laughing, and Yuuri is laughing, and he is an arrogant bastard but he feels ashamed of it, now, in a different way from when he was a child. How many skaters had he missed, that would know him like this? How many fans had actually been watching? He knows he's inspired people, or at least that's what the reporters always tell him before they shove a microphone down his throat, but it had all seemed so casual and slickly easy.

Some time later, they are pressed flush together. Yuuri somehow got ahold of even _more_ alcohol, or at least that's all his slurred Japanese is communicating to Viktor, but the last message is abundantly clear.

"Be my coach!"

Forget tonight. He wants tomorrow, and the day after, and even after Celestino apologizes and drags Yuuri away from the banquet hall his mind won't focus on near anything else. He channels it into skating, starts formulating an incredibly embarrassing short program in the back of his mind. Skaters usually hang out before competitions (or so Viktor's heard, he's not actually participated in years—except for parties with Chris, who he now feels more grateful for). He can snag his obsession and parade him about a sparkling foreign city the next time they compete, seduce him properly.

Mila has a discussion with him after the first competition where Yuuri is mysteriously absent.

"Perhaps it's better this way," she says calmly as he dramatically lies prone on one of the stands an hour after practice lets out. "After all, even though I'm not a huge fan of soulmates, you never know when yours might appear, and if you're single it'll be easier."

Viktor's had his soulmark meaning memorized for years. He's almost forgotten the shape. Or perhaps he's avoided looking at it, as though that would prevent the words from being true, like that would make them a mistake.

Make up a mistake to Yuuri with a _dance_? Yuuri should be the one apologizing; he's the one who has wrecked Viktor's world and then stumbled out of it.

Kanji. The soulmarks are in kanji.

 _Arrogant bastard_ , the Japanese skater had called him. _You're my idol and I'm just some… fan_.

"Besides," Mila finishes, brutal yet well intentioned, "You always forget things. I'm sure you'll forget him too."

 _Oh_ , Viktor thinks, dazedly. Everything starts clicking into place. _I'm not so sure._

* * *

He comes on a bit strong.

"Come out to dinner with me!"

"I'm not hungry."

"Let's sleep together!"

Door slam.

"Show me your soulmarks!"

" _Viktor_ ," the younger man hisses, and protectively presses a palm to his cover-up as though Viktor's about to peel it off. He's correct, of course. A pouting Viktor ends up rubbing his cheek into Yuuri's shoulder as he hyperventilates, and it gets no farther than that.

But weeks pass, and Yuuri is interrupting him in the night and laying with him in the onsen, telling him to be himself no matter who that is, even if it's someone who doesn't match the Russian idea of glamour and fame, even if it's someone who isn't the best at being a coach. One day when Viktor jokingly prods that they should sleep together, Yuuri only goes mildly pink. He doesn't disagree. He just passes by Viktor's door slowly that evening, and lets himself be caught.

They're lying there, Viktor babbling eagerly about some strange snack he'd seen at the corner store, when he finds Yuuri's eyes on his covered forearm.

"You want to see?"

"N-no!"

"You'd understand it," he encourages, "It's in Japanese."

Yuuri just rapidly rolls over, and Viktor pokes him with a pale finger.

"Then you'd ask to see mine," he hears quietly in the dim room, and he smiles. "That's too… much."

"Why?" He half pleads, half whines. Yuuri is the gentle kind of stern, a stunning contrast to Yakov, and he just buries his face in tan hands before mumbling.

"It's embarrassing."

"It's not even your thought, Yuuri." His poking has altered to calming figure eights on his student's back.

"But it says so much about me," the other man confesses, and Viktor feels a pang in his heart. Yuuri's soulmate had known him so instantly? His own first thought of Yuuri must have been abysmal, meaningless; maybe they aren't soulmates, though Viktor is ready to fight for this man. His skater is still speaking, however. "It took a long time, to come in fully. It wasn't solid until recently." Viktor's had been immediate, immutable, at a young age.

"Would I understand it, if I saw?"

" _Oh_ ," Yuuri's breath comes out in a rush. "Oh, um, yes."

English or Russian, then. The champion has never been one for hesitation or second guessing, and this seems like more than proof enough. Viktor reminds himself to move slowly. His arms wrap around Yuuri's waist, drag him back to fit in the hollow of his body, and the shorter man stiffens but puts one hand atop Viktor's, moves his thumb in silent circles.

Viktor is proud of himself for moving slowly, proud of Yuuri for not running. Grateful, he presses a kiss into his student's neck as a reward for both of them.

A gasp, and Yuuri is careening off towards the door, and Viktor has to admit he needs to practice patience.

Yuuri is a hard man to read. Viktor wishes he had more than Yuuri's first thought written on his arm, wishes he had all of them, from the frantic worries to the thoughts he _knows_ cannot be innocent during the short program. While their relationship changes, his soulmarks never will. They're just a jumping off point, a reminder of who he used to be before Yuuri, and Viktor never wants to go back.

* * *

Yuuri's soulmarks are, of course, a constant source of anxiety. Only the first half had bloomed softly on his forearm when he was twelve, just a delicate and devastating _something must be wrong with him—_.

Yuuri had to agree. _What,_ exactly, was wrong with him was the only question on his mind. What part of him would his soulmate see? He practices spins and jumps until his toes are numb, tries hard to make sure that _something_ is something off of the ice. He will never fix himself off the ice, but he can try to be perfect on it.

That his soulmarks are in Cyrillic is both his most secret excitement and his worst agony. It could be Viktor Nikiforov, and he clings to that thought for years, clings through harsh practice days and throws the thought roughly to the ground during rough panicked nights. He knows it can't be, won't be, he _hates himself_ for hoping.

Sometime after he qualifies for his first GPF, it comes in fully. Yuuri is always slow to grow.

 _Something must be wrong with him—or is it me, can he tell?_

The anxiety doesn't abate, but now the soulmark feels tender. The first half isn't an insult, just a buildup to a realization. It's fleeting and jumbled and he is entirely unsure how he will ever know that someone he's just met has thought it. Many people give up hope of ever being _sure_ of who their soulmates are, settling for lines that make sense, settling with the soul that has found them.

Other people have their anxieties and weaknesses too, he learns at twenty-three, even his idol.

"I don't know how to handle crying," Viktor tells him with a hand to his face. _You don't know how to handle much_ , Yuuri thinks bitterly, but despite that he loves him, loves him in his failures and his struggle to deal with them and his willingness to try. He loves the stupid mouth that never says what it means outright, a habit he suspects was developed partially so Viktor could better tease Yakov and partially so he could say whatever he liked to the press.

He loves kissing that stupid mouth, too, loves that after the Cup of China kiss his coach waits for him to initiate the next, doesn't pressure him even though it takes Yuuri almost a week. Practice has been long, his hands raw from catching himself, and when he steps off the ice to an affectionately scathing lecture he has finally built up the courage to use his added height to reach up and firmly press their lips together.

Viktor beams, tilts his head into a characteristic _I'm-going-to-destroy-you-so-pay-attention_ position. "Was this really so distracting that your jumps and performance had to be awful the last few days?"

"Maybe," Yuuri chokes out, and his coach wraps two arms around him, cuddles him close as he continues to scold.

"Don't be ridiculous. You know I'm yours. I thought I'd made that perfectly clear."

"Mm," Yuuri says from Viktor's sleeve.

"Well, maybe not to Russia. Maybe I'll use tongue in Russia when you get gold there."

"I'm pretty sure that the Professional Skaters Association would send you another cease and desist letter," the younger skater moans. He tries very hard not to imagine what will happen in Russia.

"I hope this one is written in fancier font. The last one doesn't look proper, sitting in your award case with your medal."

"It's in my _award case_?"

* * *

Viktor cries beautifully. He reaches a hand up to peer beneath the silver bangs, utterly floored. Viktor slaps his hand away, talks and cries, cries and presses him to the bed.

"I know I'm an arrogant bastard," he is huffing shakily, "But you still wanted me—and I am trying, Yuuri. You can't _also_ be an arrogant bastard that selfishly does whatever he wants."

Yuuri thinks of the Cyrillic on his arm as Viktor's tears fall on it, knows they are both insecure and stressed and that the GPF is the most emotional thing either of them has been through, Viktor watching the world spin without him and Yuuri wanting to close his eyes and pretend that he can step out of that world before it crashes, spinning and burning.

"Don't leave," Viktor pleads quietly. "I can still help you."

Russia's star always pushes. Always insists. Casually maneuvers until things go his way. That doesn't make him infallible; it doesn't make him confident. _It's me_ , he finally hears Viktor saying, _Is it me?_

"It's not you," he assures gently, feeling affection surge painfully in him. He cards his hand through the silver hair, "I just—we were brought together, Viktor, and you've given me so much. I just…"

Viktor's head raises up with determination.

"We're _soulmates_ ," he snaps lowly, and Yuuri is sobbing too, even as the champion rubs at the edges of the younger man's eyes a little too roughly.

"I know," he cries, "I know. That doesn't have to mean that I'm everything for you. I know how much you love skating, how much you've sacrificed for it. How much you sacrificed for me. I have to find my way without you, too, that's part of coming into myself. So make your decision, and I'll make mine, and we don't control each other. I just want you to be Viktor, always, and if that leaves room for me someday nothing would make me happier."

"Fine," Viktor says fiercely, "Fine."

He agrees to Yuuri's conditions, and wishes he was arrogant enough to try to change his mind with his body, to force Yuuri to stay. Instead he buries his face in his soulmate's shoulder and cries elegantly, softly, waits until his fiance's heartbeat has lulled into slow sleep before he presses feather-light kisses everywhere, claiming him.

He's too frustrated to admit it, but he knows that Yuuri is right, and that they will still be together.

* * *

His husband lets him see the soulmark on their wedding night.

"That's surprisingly humble," Viktor chuckles. Especially considering what you were thinking about _me_ at that moment."

"Oh no."

"It's all right." The older man, satisfied, gives him a teasing kiss on the cheek. "It was true, at the time. _But_ —" he perfectly lifts his leg from the mattress, points a toe up at the ceiling "—me being an arrogant bastard did get us this gorgeous house in St. Petersburg."

"I didn't call you that," Yuuri breathes out, "I _didn't_."

"Not out loud," Viktor agrees jovially, "Not until later, anyway."

"No no no no _no_." He buries his face in his hands, but he curls into Viktor anyway. "The banquet?"

"The banquet."

"Why does it always come back to that?"

"It will _always_ come back to when I first fell in love with you." He ruffles Yuuri's hair, whispers into it. "You know, you're surprisingly brash in your head. It makes me wonder what else you're thinking of. What kind of _ideas_ you have. What other… rude things you call me."

Yuuri is embarrassed, bright red, but he handles it differently now that they're married, now that they're rivals on the ice. "You'd like to know, wouldn't you?"

"Yes please," Viktor replies quietly. His husband already has gentle, worshipping hands all over.

"I'll make you say yours first," Yuuri promises.

"I love you," Viktor moans, cries, whispers, over and over. They're promises too, ones he will always put before everything else.

Yuuri keeps his few promises, understands now what they mean. Viktor, arrogant as he is, just keeps as many of them as he can. They are perfect in that way.

* * *

 _A/N: I'm going to try to send everyone private PMs now, unless you're a guest, because Lotus Sword was kind enough to point out that you could do that to this very old soul (I started out on this website like ten years ago). If you want me to leave you the heck alone, please tell me so. As always, I'm incredibly grateful for any reviews or input. Midnightdreams33 did suggest this AU idea, so power to them!_

 _Laura- I really, REALLY like ideas 2 and 4 (not like I don't also like the rest, but I do play favorites). I've put my creative muse to work on those and I'm turning the others over in my head. Thanks for contributing!_


	5. Foolish Dreams

_A/N: AU where you experience your first meeting with your soulmate repeatedly in your dreams, albeit in odd ways._

 _As always, if you have an idea for a soulmate AU, please let me know through review and I might write a oneshot for it. I am trying to avoid the ones that I repeatedly see (your soulmate's name tattooed on your arm, a timer counting down until you meet, you get colors when you first touch, etc), but other than that I'm wide open and ready for inspiration! Hit me._

Foolish Dreams

Viktor's daily life is full of the same things, the same colors, the same scents. There is the frozen blue scraping of the rink, the minimal sleekness of his home, the fluffy chocolate that is Makkachin. His dreams, on the other hand, never keep the same scene. Just the same theme, the same terrible moral to the story.

He is a crown prince in a foreign land, dressed in mahogany finery, awaiting the arrival of the neighboring royalty of his six-state nation. The preparations have been intense; Advisor Yakov will not stop fussing over paperwork and the steadiness of his sword arm. His cousin and next in line, Yuri, has been particularly immature and strained, his youthful head weighed down by the crown. Confinement to the castle will be all he knows for the next few weeks, so Viktor goes for one last ride on his beloved chestnut mare, Makkachin.

He is affectionately rubbing her down when he hears soft murmuring from the next stall over, first spots the beautiful, if slightly small, stallion that has not quite settled into its new surroundings. Some of his visitors must have arrived early; Yakov will be spitting fire that he hasn't returned yet. With a final pat to Makkachin, the prince exits her stall and pokes his silver head into the open neighboring space easily. The redhead startles to his feet, turns, locks warm brown eyes on his own. His clothes are muddy, rumpled, and clearly those of a commoner. He fumbles the hoof pick in his hand and scrabbles for it in the straw, briefly, before giving up entirely and just staring.

"He's with you?" Silence. "Unfortunately, this space is reserved for the Eastern State's steed." He smiles genially to take the edge off; he's sure the stable boy was just confused. "Shall I show you where to put your master's horses? There's a gold piece in it for you, I'm sure."

The stable boy bites his lip, his face unreadable as he suddenly and expertly mounts the stallion bareback, leading it out the stall door past Viktor and urging the horse into a smooth, gaited escape. The soft yet firm line of the man's back has the prince feel yearning shift restlessly in his stomach.

"Viktor." Yakov is at his side, already looking stormy, as predicted. He'd clearly come to fetch him.

"Ah, I know I'm meant to be up at the castle—" he apologizes flippantly, but his advisor grimaces and interrupts.

"I see you've met the new reigning heir of the Eastern empire." The familiar smell of hay and horse is suddenly painfully sharp in his nose. "Excellent job."

He can still see the redhead on the horizon, steady and fresh in the morning light.

 _Come back_ , he wants to say, but this is always where the dream frays, where Viktor wakes, sweating and clutching at satin sheets. Most nights he falls back to a fitful, dreamless sleep; some nights he stays awake because he fears the dream, fears failing in a way that he never has to deal with in real life.

It's his first meeting with his soulmate, played on endless repeat, though it alters every night. Viktor is a successful heart surgeon who tries to politely tell a patient's haggard wife to leave the diagnosis in his hands, only to discover she is actually his pulmonologist, fresh off of a forty eight hour shift. Viktor is a Russian mob boss who mistakes the head of a yakuza clan for a _chauffeur_.

There are constants to his dreams, of course. His soulmate never speaks, just stares with endless brown eyes from shifting faces and bodies. His soulmate is never angry, not even particularly shocked. You'd think that after a hundred nights like this, dream-Viktor would learn, would correct his mistakes. You'd think that actual Viktor Nikiforov, the skater who can accomplish any jump or spin, would be able to learn.

Instead, he feels eyes on him, and turns to see a short, rumpled fan staring blearily from behind the fan barrier after his fifth Grand Prix gold.

"A commemorative photo?" He asks with a practiced and perfect smile. At the words, the fan's face shifts, his glasses altering angle so Viktor can see past the glare on them to soft, expressive brown eyes. The fan hunches and spins on his heel, his tiny suitcase bumping behind, and in confusion, Viktor watches him go. A rough hand lands on his elbow. Yakov clears his throat.

"That would be Yuuri Katsuki," Yakov tells him, aggravated.

"Am I supposed to know him?"

"One of this year's top six skaters in the world?"

Viktor feels his mouth go dry.

"Oh," is all he can reply, and Yakov doesn't even stop there.

"Japan's ace? The one whose step sequences and spins are so complex that they are among the few I am trying to teach Yuri Plisetsky- Russia's future skating savant- to aspire to? One of the rare skaters who puts all of his quads in the second half of his program? The one whose performance component score is so high that he got into the top 6 despite flubbing at least one free skate jump in all of his performances?"

"I am a bad person, Yakov," he realizes verbally.

"Admittedly, he was a disaster tonight."

Suddenly Viktor is feeling sick for multiple reasons.

"I dreamed about this," he says hesitantly.

"About gravely disrespecting one of the few people whom you can consider a peer? How often could you possibly dream about that?"

"At least once a week."

"Oh no," Yakov says, "You will not tell me that man is your soulmate, Vitya." The champion is uncharacteristically silent, and Yakov groans. "The Russian media is going to have a heyday." He snorts. "Well, they'll have a heyday if he ever forgives you."

"He'll forgive me," Viktor insists. "I'm sure he's had the dream too. He has to know that we're meant for each other."

The responding scowl is bitter. "It sounds like a nightmare."

"Like repeatedly being reminded your soul is bonded to an unreliable какашка," the young ice tiger feels compelled to add, snickering. "Maybe that's why he was crying in the bathroom. This is probably the worst day of his life."

"Oh," is all gold medalist Viktor Nikiforov can reply, feeling his heart plummet. He waits for the dream to split and shatter, to wake up clutching the sheets and insisting that he will not let the meeting happen like that, never again, but he is rooted and trapped in this reality, and his soulmate is stepping out alone into the frozen night.

* * *

His eyes follow the Japanese skater like a train wreck waiting to happen. When will he call him out? How should—how can— Viktor apologize?

"Stop looking, you idiot," Yuri hisses, but he's already doing the same thing.

A row of champagne glasses later, the Japanese skater approaches. Viktor prepares for a drunk and supremely awkward rant, involving the demanding of respect from his one and only soulmate.

Instead, the man babbles in Japanese for a few moments, hanging off of him with shining eyes.

 _That's not the face of an angry man,_ he recognizes, overtaken by confusion.

"Be my coach, Viktor!" He exclaims in English suddenly, flinging loose arms about the Russian skater.

 _Oh my,_ is all his brain manages before short circuiting. _Cute._

A few short minutes later they are dancing, spinning, _laughing._ It's not rare for Viktor to royally screw things up verbally, not rare for him to disrespect people, but what most don't understand is that he is well aware of the problem but the master of the press and fame doesn't know how to fix it. He can perfect a quadruple flip, he can suavely flirt for a while, but ultimately his own mouth is his enemy. He'll always regret his last words to his parents, his first to Yakov, quite a few of the ones he's thrown at ex-lovers. They've all forgiven him, but not like this. Not without a sharp edge of _don't do something like this again, Vitya_ , something he desperately wishes he could oblige. _I'm forgiving you because you're brilliant, Vitya, even when you are such a fool._  
Yuuri dances like forgiveness is an abstract concept, like the world is so breathtakingly beautiful there is nothing to be forgiven. He's tipping his bottle of champagne against Viktor's lips, swinging it up too high and brushing the errant sweet droplets from the corners of Viktor's helpless smile with clumsy fingers.

This is something the dream never prepared him for. He feels raw and thrust out beyond the limits of his comprehension; his tie is loosened at his throat, his muscles sore from victory but becoming more limber with every careless spin around the dance floor.

Later, Celestino is luring Yuuri away with whispers of _something_ —Viktor is almost certain he hears his own name but dismisses the thought—and then sloppy, sticky lips are pressed to his cheek.

"I have to leave now," Yuuri announces grandly, which Yuri follows up with a snapped _thank god_ in Russian. His blonde hair is still out of place from their dance battle. Christophe leans in and caresses Yuuri's arm, sweetly promising a rematch on the pole at the next international competition, _loser has to strip for the winner all the way_. Yuuri pats him back with deep sympathy. "I'm always single but not really, you know."

"Is that so." The Swiss skater is already incredibly interested, sagely nodding. "Who's won your glass heart?"

"Who wins everything?" He expects the tone to be playful, a joke, but it's not, just plain and unpracticed and almost exhausted.

"Yuuri," Celestino calls from a few feet away, "You made me swear to bring you back before midnight."

"I have to leave now," Yuuri announces again, more subdued, and he pats a fuming Yuri on the head before stumbling over to his coach. The Italian hauls the graceful drunk up to a respectable posture, and Viktor's soulmate is gone.

The party dies out like a doused flame, but the champion clings to the night, almost carries a champagne glass out with him before Yakov removes it from his fingers.

"I don't like the look on your face," his coach observes grimly. "And I don't know what you expect to happen, now."

Viktor doesn't know what he expects, either, doesn't know what he desires. He just knows that he _wants_ , desperately wants, and that when the dream continues to assault him every night his soulmate has solidified. Brown eyes, carelessly messy black hair, and as he makes his exit he turns back to Viktor now, intakes an inviting, smiling breath, and sends Viktor spiraling into conscious oblivion.

* * *

Yuuri doesn't remember most of his dreams. They stay with him in mute swirls of color and dance. The snatches he does remember are filled with icy blue eyes, what he's sure is a projection of his idol and childhood crush onto his soulmate. His dreams are bubbling sweetness on the tongue that pop when he wakes, and despite not knowing the full contents of the dream he never wants it to end, never wants to wake to solemn morning light. He comes to the day after the GPF having dreamt vividly, his soulmate taking on the form of Viktor Nikiforov much too closely. Worst of all, that heartbreaking error stays, every dream a spinning blur of silver and blue. He already has enough dreams of Viktor; he doesn't need his soulmate dream to take him on, as well.

It's almost like he's summoned him, with those dreams, and Yuuri pinches himself every day for the first week after Viktor arrives in Hasetsu. Before Beijing, Viktor has already sweet-talked and persistently maneuvered his way into Yuuri's bed every night, and he's almost fearful the other man will hear the sleepy roll of his name off of his unconscious tongue.

One evening, he wakes in that surreal space before dawn, sees the silver and blue beside him, assumes he's still trapped in the layers of a familiar dream. It's tempting. Even in dreams Yuuri is a hesitant and anxious man. His only comfort is knowing that here he will never be rejected, that when he slides his tongue into the champion's mouth there are no consequences, just quiet acceptance.

But it's _loud_ , with soft gasping and intimate sucking noises that Yuuri's mind must have fabricated from movies. His heartbeat pounds real and rapid in his chest.

"It's not fair," he murmurs lowly, pulling back, and Viktor presses upwards to meet him still.

"What's," a light brushing of their lips, "not fair, Yuuri?"

Even in dreams he struggles to say it, even in dreams Viktor's furrowed brow and red lips are irresistible. He leans in again, kisses and hopes he recalls all of this when he wakes, that he can daydream about it and pretend it's a memory. His coach is adept, but even he can't make up for Yuuri's inexperience. Their teeth clack, and Yuuri tries to shift to a better position but he accidentally bites instead, hears the resulting low moan and tastes sharp metallic blood—

Reality sends him tumbling, has his whole body freezing and trembling with impact, like when he falls during practice.

" _Viktor_ ," and he's pulling back, trying and failing to extract himself from the covers. It's not a dream, none of it is a dream, he's taken the fantasy of having Viktor come coach him and mold him into a worthy skater and ruined everything because he couldn't swallow his own feelings.

"It's all right," his coach soothes, sitting up, rubbing a finger to his lips in the dark. "It's okay, Yuuri, that happens sometimes. I don't mind. If anything, I like—"

"I'm sorry," Yuuri frantically agonizes, "I'm sorry, Viktor. I didn't know it was you, if I'd realized I wouldn't have... I thought I was dreaming and—please don't be upset." His breathing is the only sound in the room.

"You didn't know… it was me."

Viktor, in certain moods, is difficult to read while sitting across the table from him at dinner. Here, in heated darkness, Yuuri doesn't stand a chance.

"N-no."

"Who were you trying to kiss, then? Who else shares your bed?" _Playful_. The tone is brutally light, a challenge, and Yuuri realizes that Viktor is aggravated, just as he'd feared. Yuuri is a laughable liar, so he has to deal in partial truths. One flies from his lips.

"Soulmate. My soulmate. Sometimes I dream and I'm—I'm sorry."

Thankfully, his room is clean, the floor empty enough for him to cross in the dark. His hand is on the doorframe before he realizes that Viktor has already risen from bed and prowled over to him, mussed silver hair shining in the moonlight. It does something to him, deep in his belly, to know he caused it. He's gripping his hands into tight fists, stretching skin too far over his knuckles.

"You're going to leave your own room, in the middle of the night?" Viktor's laughter is a low rumble. Yuuri feels cornered, compressed, even next to a potential escape. "So, he looks like me, in your dreams?"

Yuuri's eyes flutter shut. _Exactly like you_. It'd be foolish to do anything but agree. "Yes."

"Does that please you?"

He clings to the doorframe, throws his eyes to the shadows at the edges of the room. "You know what you look like, Viktor." The Russian says nothing, tips his head. "You're on a most eligible bachelors list!" Yuuri prays he learned that information from some official site, and not a gossip magazine.

"I'm appealing to most, I know." He steps forward, Yuuri scuttles back, and his face settles into an impatient frown. "You're going to run again? I'd prefer not to return to the start of my stay here. I thought we'd been getting closer." Viktor looks so disappointed that, as his student, the Japanese man can't let him down any further.

"It's just embarrassing," Yuuri confesses hotly, "And I don't want to…" He gestures vaguely to the space between them. "Overstep boundaries." A wince. "Like I already have."

"Embarrassing? Oh." Viktor has his wrist, is gently guiding him back to bed, the scene of the crime. He wishes he could sink beneath the tatami mats on the floor. He feels anxieties begin to swallow him— _how am I supposed to sleep with you again, I'll never know if I'm awake or not, please don't be upset, Viktor._ Every action he takes with Viktor feels like a stumble, an accident, but his idol spins his missteps into gold. Shameful viral video? Viktor swears it inspires him. His ridiculous epiphany that katsudon is a metaphor for sexual love? Viktor instructs him to imagine the juiciness of the pork, proclaims him a winner. He wakes from a lucid dream and starts shoving his tongue down his coach's throat? Viktor… god.

Yuuri's luck will run out someday; surely that day is today, surely he can't take a kiss, an admission that his student actually _dreams of him_ and make it into—

"I dream about you all of the time, Yuuri."

The Japanese skater blinks. Seats himself lightly.

"No, you don't."

Viktor nudges at his knees with cupped hands until he pulls them from the floor, rolls over to his side of the bed. The Russian picks the sheets up from where Yuuri essentially flung them to the ground, snaps them crisply in the air while Yuuri's brown eyes follow him.

He's meticulously tucking the edges back under the mattress before Yuuri clears his throat, repeats himself.

"No, you don't."

"I heard you," Viktor replies calmly. He crawls over Yuuri and deposits his lithe form back into the bed with a sigh. "I don't pretend to know what your dreams are. Don't assume to know mine."

Lying there, his flush cooling and pulse slowing, Yuuri can almost imagine the last five minutes didn't happen.

"I don't really know what mine are about, either, most of the time."

"Really?" Viktor props his head up on one hand. "Even your soulmate dream?"

"Especially my soulmate dream."

 _"Really_?"

There's far too much excitement dancing in his blue eyes. A private heart-shaped grin is edging its way onto his face. All of the strain leaks from the room.

"It's not funny," Yuuri complains petulantly. Viktor tries to school his facial expression and fails spectacularly, cheerfully pinching Yuuri's cheek.

"Have you ever heard of a dream journal?"

 _I will never do that_ , Yuuri thinks. Viktor's fingers begin to trace spirals on his cheek. _Never_.

* * *

Yuuri is two weeks into his dream journal when he realizes that Viktor is keeping one too. Yuuri had been diligent, as he is with everything, leaving out only the dream after the night of the Cup of China because he'd been trembling too much the next morning to properly put pen to paper. Viktor had _kissed_ him, soulmate thrown to the wind, kissed him when they were both very awake. Minako sends him a movie file just minutes after it hits the news, and he saves it in a folder and views it a disturbing amount of times, mostly in the short period the Japanese skater has to himself before Viktor slides through his door at night. Sometimes, when the dancing steps sound outside his room, he has to hastily wipe away tears. Sometimes, the smile when Viktor comes in is real and sometimes it's not.

One morning, he fumbles for his glasses, stretches briefly, and feels for his dream journal in his bedside drawer. _I must've forgotten to lock it_. The notebook he pulls out is real, soft leather, embossed with gold. Carefully, he returns it to its position and pads out into the quiet bustle of the inn's morning. He wanders through the onsen, the kitchens, down the halls, finally finds what he's looking for perched on a bench outside.

The silver haired man waves with one hand. The other is clutching a cheap, slightly worn spiral notebook.

"Viktor," Yuuri breathes, "If you are reading my dream journal, I have to go throw myself into the ocean."

"I don't recommend swimming as exercise to improve your ice skating." He snaps the dream journal shut, beams up at the Japanese man like he hasn't just read five pages of indiscernible bits of the soulmate dream, seven pages of nightmares, and ten pages filled with _him_. "You agreed to let me look."

"A _page or two_ ," Yuuri protests in disbelief.

"So I picked a page or two." He pats the bench beside him, and Yuuri wordlessly complies to the request. "I left mine for you! It's an exchange, fun, yes?"

"No," his student grits out, looking down. "So you… found out. How much I dream about you."

"I already knew you dreamed about me." The notebook sits in the champion's lap, his fingers lacing lazily beneath his chin. "You made that excruciatingly clear."

"I'm sorry," Yuuri apologizes automatically, guilt clenching around his heart.

"I'm not." He nudges Yuuri's sneaker with a boot. "You know, most people who repeatedly see someone else in their soulmate dream would assume it was their soulmate."

"I know better," Yuuri assures him in a rush. "I know we're not like that." Viktor is just staring at him, so he ploughs on awkwardly. "Even if I dream about you all of the time. Even if you're very kind to me." The excuses ring hollow in Yuuri's ears, desperate covers for the truth. "Even if you're my inspiration. Even if…"

"Even if you love me."

"Yeah," Yuuri admits, voice watery, before he snaps his petrified gaze back up to Viktor's. "Ah. Not... well, yes."

"Yuuri," Viktor begins pleasantly, casually, "If I have to spend one more day physically throwing myself at you, offering myself to you emotionally in whatever way you desire, watching you stare at me and feeling you kiss me, telling you that I consistently dream about you _all while you deny we are even a possibility_ , so help me I will make a training regimen so harsh your teeth will fall out." He smiles beatifically. His hand gently pats a frozen Yuuri on the head. "Are we clear?"

"Like glass," Yuuri squeaks. He fusses helplessly with the fabric of his clothes.

Viktor flicks the notebook into his lap with a lazy toss of his hand. "You know where my dream journal is."

"Yep."

"And you'll go read it after we have practice today."

"Yes," Yuuri agrees. "And you… you really aren't upset?" He scratches at the surface of his dream journal with one finger. "Not even about the dream from last week with you?" Viktor says nothing. "You and me ice dancing and then we… um…" It was one of Yuuri's favorites, a recurring dream with a very satisfying ending.

Viktor's gaze settles on the notebook, slender fingers curling against his knee. He's an inherently curious person, Yuuri knows, and—

"You didn't read it," Yuuri groans. "Oh, god, I told you _everything_ and you didn't even read it."

"Ah, caught," Viktor hums happily, standing. "You should've known I would never invade your privacy anyway."

"I found you _under my mattress_ just last week looking at my posters! You have pulled me out of the onsen stark naked! You and Mari figured out my laptop password last month and you've been leaving me 'good morning' sticky-notes on my desktop and I _know_ you went through my pictures!"

"You never changed your password," Viktor accuses. "That's just common sense."

"Of course not, I like it!" Yuuri blurts hotly. Viktor smiles, slides his hands into his expensive jacket pockets. Yuuri stumbles up to his feet beside the older man, who begins to walk back towards the inn. Yuuri can't help himself; he follows.

"Also," Viktor continues conversationally, "I had no idea Christmas was your favorite holiday."

"What?" Yuuri raises an eyebrow.

"Your password."

The Japanese man nearly chokes on his own spit. "I—yes, it's my favorite holiday. I love Christmas." The last statement is true, and the first is false.

"Well, my password is Makkachin," Viktor confides, and Yuuri rolls his eyes. "I'm lying! That would be too easy. It's actually Sochi2015."

"Your last Grand Prix win," Yuuri supplies. They reach the door.

Viktor makes an odd sound in his throat. "Yes, that." He gently pushes his student through the inn door. "Now go get ready. And later, don't forget to _read_."

Despite his mind being occupied, practice goes smoothly. Viktor takes the ice when he's done, spinning expertly in lazy circles to warm up.

"I'll see you at home," Yuuri calls, and the champion waves from across the rink.

The Japanese skater doesn't know what he expects. He certainly doesn't expect the first date from Viktor's dream journal to be years ago. They're amusing, the dreams, and surprisingly are mostly Viktor repeatedly making a fool of himself. Several are in Russian, handwriting wobbly with sleep.

Then, the dreams change. He's read the fourth one that mentions dark hair, wide glasses, shorter frame before he feels the tears well up, his breath catch in his throat, flips back to the first of the ones where his likeness appears— _Yuuri_. It's one day after a date he couldn't forget, a date he thought would always be the worst of his existence. Hungrily, desperately he's reading, flipping through the pages and wondering dimly how any of this is happening in waking life.

He jolts when he hears the shower blast from the next room over. Viktor has returned, Viktor Viktor Viktor—

His coach always throws himself on Yuuri's bed when he occupies Yuuri's room, but the younger skater settles habitually on Viktor's floor, tucks his face into his knees, and waits.

Viktor emerges with the steam, white bathrobe loose on his shoulders.

"Yuuri," he says softly after a pause.

"You were already awake that night, when I kissed you."

Viktor chuckles. "Yes."

"You kissed me _back_."

"And I thought for a moment I was dreaming too."

Yuuri stands, but not for long. He takes Viktor down to the floor, cradling his head, hugging him fiercely.

"I love you, Viktor," he is saying, "I love you. We're _soulmates_ , aren't we, god I—"

Viktor never hesitates to meet him where he's at.

* * *

Yuuri has been _trying_ to read a book before going to bed. Viktor is determined not to let this happen.

"'There's a pole—I guess it's a stripper pole? There's a stripper pole at such a formal party, so I always know it must be a dream,'" Viktor reads, licks a finger and turns the page, "'How would they ever get it in? There's a hissing kitten and, of course, a shirtless Viktor Nikiforov because I cannot believe this is actually happening to me. This is the soulmate dream, which despite the stripper pole is usually appropriate—'" Yuuri throws his book to the covers and his head into his hands "'—so he kept his pants on this time, at least until...'" he squints, flips to the next page. "Yuuri, writing in Japanese is cheating."

"The journal wasn't made for you."

"I guess it was made for Mari, then."

Yuuri pounces as best he is able, but Viktor has longer arms.

"Translate it for me," the Russian sings.

"I am _never_ reading it out loud."

Viktor nips at his earlobe, whispers. "I can be very convincing."

 _I am never doing that_ , Yuuri thinks. _Never_. Viktor smiles, blows into his ear, reaches a hand beneath his clothes. _Maybe..._.

Yuuri stills, takes a deep breath, and tries to save himself as best he can.

"Take off your shirt and I'll show you."

Soulmates don't always dream about the same meeting, but now Viktor and Yuuri make dreams happen in reality.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _Me: I can be a creative person with unique ideas!_

 _Also me: 99.9% of my writing for this fandom are scenes occurring in a bed._

 _Holy WOW. I've broken the 150 mark for both faves and alerts, and I got 50 reviews. This means so much to me! You are all so fantastic. Also, someone just offered to translate this piece into another language, so excuse me while I go die of excitement in a corner from all of this love._ _I'm sending out PMs to reviewers, as per usual!_

 _This fic is going up on Archive of Our Own, too, though it's not fully updated yet. This soulmate AU was inspired by comments from Kirei Ao Tori (I know it's not exactly like what you said, so I'll likely do another one-shot related to dreams at some point) and drkm2000. Thanks much to them!_


	6. Making It Official

_A/N: This chapter is really long and spans more than all of season one and I'm sorry._

 _AU where soulmates are revealed/monitored by the government, and you get legal rights similar to a married couple if you choose to file for bonding. I actually explain this one pretty thoroughly in the chapter (shocking, I know)._

 _As always, if you have an idea for a soulmate AU, please let me know through review and I might write a oneshot for it. I am trying to avoid the ones that I repeatedly see (your soulmate's name tattooed on your arm, a timer counting down until you meet, you get colors when you first touch, etc), but other than that I'm wide open and ready for inspiration! Hit me._

Making It Official

When Yuuri is ten, he and his parents take the trip to Tokyo to visit the Anima Department, waiting in the ridiculously long line while Hiroko and Toshiya chat quietly and ruffle his hair. Mari asks to stay home, having experienced the trip herself at ten and feeling unimpressed. Most schools are required to have a field trip to the Tokyo department or the one in Osaka, but the Katsuki family, like many others, want to be present for their children's experience.

After a veritable mountain of paperwork, a smiling woman ushers them down a long hallway, through a new office, and into a back room, away from the bustle.

"Oh, things have changed since Mari was a child," Hiroko peacefully comments. They all take their seats, Yuuri swinging his short legs in his chair and shyly avoiding the woman's eyes.

"I know you have come a long way and sacrificed your time for today," the woman says, "But I am obligated to immediately warn you that we cannot reveal your son's soulmate."

Hiroko covers her mouth. "Oh my. I thought if the other child was too young they would send us a letter telling us not to come for another few years?"

"Unfortunately, it's not an age gap issue. Your son's soulmate is of age." Before Yuuri knows it, his gaze which had previously been focused on the floor is looking at a pair of black shoes. The woman crouches down to his level, voice gentle. "May I call you Yuuri?"

He nods.

"Have they taught you much about soulmates in school, Yuuri?"

"A little." His voice is small. His mother has already given him the speech about a "person meant for him in every way," and so have his teachers, but it's complicated to grasp fully.

"Well, even though a soulmate is someone you're born connected to, it's difficult to find out who you match all on your own; it's in your blood. We test a little blood when you're born, and our world's governments have made it so it's easy for us to keep track of soulmates, but sometimes countries fight and sometimes they disagree."

"We're not in a war," Yuuri mumbles.

"No, Yuuri, we're not. But Japan has laws that say no matter where or who you are, as long as everyone is of age—that's ten years old, Yuuri—then you have a right to know who your soulmate is." She places a gentle hand on his knee, and Yuuri squirms. "Not every country has those laws. Some countries let you know the moment you come out of your mom's belly! In the US, parents can stop their children's soulmates from being revealed until they're 18. Some countries let the child choose to not reveal based on their soulmate's gender. There's so many reasons that someone could want to keep themselves secret from their soulmate." The Japanese boy picks at his fingernail, absorbing. "But what's most important for you to understand, Yuuri, is that this is not your fault. You didn't do anything wrong, and it doesn't mean you're not loved."

Yuuri watches his father take his mother's hand and tries to ignore the knot forming in his throat.

"So I won't ever meet my soulmate?"

"Your soulmate's country told us we couldn't reveal their identity to you. They also told us it wasn't permanent. Unfortunately, that's all the information we were given," she adds, looking to Toshiya. "Yuuri, I believe that someday you'll be allowed to know who your soulmate is, but right now we can't reveal them to you." She stands, clasps her hands behind her back. "Please take as much time as you need to process this."

Yuuri is already a quiet and reserved child. He plays by himself, skates and dances in every spare moment, and Yuuko and Takeshi are his only friends. Hiroko frets over him (despite what anyone may think, she's the one he inherited the anxiety from), feeds him katsudon and tells him every day how beloved he is. She'd always hoped his soulmate would make things easier, would bring him out and let Yuuri shine.

They go back home to Hasetsu with nothing, and the future stretches out infinite and unsure in front of him.

* * *

Yuuri is twenty-three and thinks about his soulmate sometimes just before he falls into the haze of sleep, and that's all. He has other things to worry about, namely his revived career and his new coach, whom he fiercely adores and is terrified by.

They've just made it through the Kyushu competition when it happens. The stamina Yuuri has always leaned on fails him when he pushes too far one evening at Ice Castle, despite Viktor's warnings. As if from far away, Yuuri watches his leg crumple at the end of a quad Salchow, his head slam to the ice, ringing until he moves into complete blackness.

Someone shines lights in his eyes, asks him a few questions about himself. There are machines and long car rides and Viktor trying very hard not to scold at him, at the doctors, at anyone in the vicinity. Slipping in and out is easy.

A hospital room is the next thing he sees clearly.

"I don't need a hospital room to myself," Yuuri groans.

"I insisted," someone says from the corner of the room. It's too loud, and too bright, though the clock on the wall says 11pm. Viktor is bright too, all silver hair and silky voice. "A doctor that clearly cheated to earn his medical degree misread one of your scans and told us you might have a major head injury, so we got a private room yesterday. Now they seem to think that you're mostly fine; they've got you on a few pain medications." Yuuri's neck and ankle ache fuzzily, it's true.

"Thank god. The Cup of China's soon. How did you get in here?" Yuuri asks in a daze. "I thought they only allowed family? Especially at this hour."

"Oh, that's easy," Viktor replies with an irresistible smile, sitting on the hospital bed beside him, "I fibbed and told them we were soulmates."

Thanks to the monitor, Yuuri can now _hear_ his heartbeat speeding up.

"What… they wouldn't just let you…"

"I had to sign a few things," Viktor admits, "But we can deal with that later."

"Sign _what_?"

Viktor crosses his legs, looking entirely undisturbed. "I'm not sure. It was all Japanese. Mostly I just wanted in the room, and I figured that was the fastest way." _Westerners,_ Yuuri thinks, _They always treat soulmate laws lightly._

"Viktor, if they try to actually register us there could be major issues." Fear comes far more slowly through the hazy fog of medicine. "They have my soulmate on record and there's fines for this kind of thing."

"Yakov always told me I'd be better suited for a life of crime," Viktor replies cheerfully, before leaning in, hand on Yuuri's blanketed shoulder. The Japanese tries to slow his breathing, to control the heart monitor, but it's a dead giveaway. "…I thought you didn't have a soulmate."

Yuuri blinks. "Who told you that?"

"Mari said you came back from your official reveal and told her you would never meet them."

"Ah, I was ten," Yuuri says, closing his eyes and leaning back into the pillow, "And even more anxious, if you can believe that." He bites at his lip gently, briefly, and laughs. Viktor's hand tightens on his shoulder. "The government just said it couldn't reveal my soulmate because of their home country's laws, couldn't tell me why, and then sent a nervous ten-year-old back to a town full of kids whose soulmates lived next door. I got dramatic."

"I'm glad I'm not the only one." Yuuri's eyes flutter open.

"So you know that you're dramatic?"

Viktor huffs and lays his head down on Yuuri's chest, giving the student a terribly tempting view of the silver crown of his head. _I've already poked it once, I could definitely…_

"I meant I'm not the only one that hasn't met their soulmate."

Yuuri could fake surprise, but he knows all about the man and Viktor is already aware of that. "You know, most people think you've already found them and have just hidden them away on some private island."

"Is that so?" He twists his head, chin settling over Yuuri's heart. "That does sound exciting. Are you most people?"

"I'm a competitive skater," Yuuri replies, yawning, "I just thought you'd given yourself to the ice."

Viktor hums, and he can feel it pulsing against him, can feel Viktor's next words tiptoeing over his chest, lulling him to sleep.

"I didn't mean to."

* * *

He wakes when the nurse comes in, chest empty and Viktor sitting at the window, flicking through his phone. Now that he's awake, she fires off a barrage of questions for the physical that Yuuri would feel uncomfortable with if he were completely healthy. Viktor's hand finds his under the covers, answers when he deems it appropriate.

"Smoker?" She questions, pen hovering over her clipboard.

"He's smoking," Viktor corrects, already incredibly pleased with himself, "smoking hot," and she scowls and Yuuri shoots him a sleepy disbelieving look before he relents casually, "No. He needs his lungs to skate competitively and run his 9 kilometers every morning."

"How often do you exercise?"

Viktor taps at his wrist impatiently beneath the covers.

" _Every morning_ ," Yuuri repeats after Viktor with as much sarcasm as he can muster, so it comes out politely. Viktor laughs quietly through his nose anyway. Every morning. Every afternoon. Most nights.

"Any medications?"

"Over the counter pain pills," Viktor supplies. Two of them in the morning, if his feet are especially bruised.

Yuuri squirms, spares a half glance at Viktor before quietly admitting, "Lorazepam. Since I was fifteen."

"For insomnia, or anxiety?"

"Both." He feels the shameful burning in his cheeks, can't quite meet Viktor's gaze. His coach's fingers lace with his own, but he feels too disconnected from the situation to try and give any meaning to the gesture.

"Allergies?"

"Latex?" Viktor suggests sweetly under his breath so quickly that the nurse doesn't even understand why Yuuri sputters and flails, bites out,

"No allergies!"

"Are you sexually active?"

Silence. Of all of the questions to treat seriously, this one has Viktor behaving.

"No," Yuuri murmurs, and it sounds deafeningly loud.

The nurse's pen hesitates, her eyes wandering between the two of them, narrowing at Viktor's hand beneath the hospital sheets.

"It is important," she emphasizes, "To be honest for this examination and take it seriously."

Yuuri shivers a little, stops the words from tumbling from his mouth. _We're not soulmates, we're not lovers, don't look at us like that. Don't make me remember that Viktor and I are just coach and student and nothing else_. "I'm being honest." She raises an eyebrow. "Tell her, Viktor."

" _We're_ not sexually active," Viktor informs her blithely.

Another nurse pokes her head into the room. "I forgot to include the extra paperwork for this room, my apologies. The soulmate filing just came back." Yuuri flinches.

"Thank you, I'll come grab it." Her pen flits across the page, and she turns back to them. "I'm sorry, I deal with a lot of teenagers that try to sell me the _not sexually active_ idea, lying in their hospital beds with their soulmate, and I forget that some people don't meet until they're adults."

"Oh," Yuuri says, seeing the opportunity to move to fix the falsehood, because they're not soulmates, no matter how much he's imagined it. "We're actually not—"

"That familiar with each other yet," Viktor finishes smoothly. "Lovemaking will happen someday, when it feels natural."

The nurse, a cranky older woman, looks somewhat dazzled and wanders out the door. Viktor has that effect on people. Yuuri is certainly one of those people, and he rubs his cheek into the uncomfortable hospital pillow for a few moments, embarrassed and trying to wind himself down. _It's almost like Viktor means it_. Before he can ponder it too much, the nurse returns.

"All right, your soulmate paperwork went through. The doctor'll be in later and wants you monitored for another twenty four hours to be absolutely sure there's no head trauma, but then we'll release you."

Yuuri feels like there must be head trauma.

"It went through," he repeats cautiously. "Viktor and I are legally recognized as bonded soulmates."

The woman sniffs. "It seems anticlimactic, I know, it's not very romantic. My soulmate and I signed in a courtroom one day and it felt like nothing had changed."

She exits. Yuuri tries to breathe slowly.

"Who?" He asks Viktor.

"Who… what?"

"Who did you flirt with to get the papers through?"

"Yuuri, I'm offended that you think I would use my body and not my money to bribe someone." He retracts his hand from Yuuri's under the covers and sits himself in the chair next to the bed. It's too short for him—his long legs seem curled in slightly, until he crosses them. "I suppose some government employee didn't really look at your file, just approved it."

"Doesn't that bother you?"

"Why would it?" Viktor challenges merrily. "Look at us, Yuuri, soulmates!"

"Look at us," Yuuri echoes, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Oh, are you tired again?" Yuuri nods. Exhausted. "Get some sleep, then. And don't worry, Yuuri, if something goes wrong we can always contact the bonding office and tell them there was a mistake. Until then, I'll stay right here with you in the hospital."

 _But how long will you stay with me?_ Yuuri wants to ask, _How long will you be my coach, pretend to be my soulmate, hold my hand under the covers?_

"You don't have to. Goodnight," he sighs instead, and Viktor responds with lilting, affectionate Russian, _goodnight_.

* * *

In the night, he wakes slowly. Quiet bustle sounds in the hallway, low voices and tapping shoes on the hospital floors. Something softly sweet permeates the air, and Yuuri realizes a shadow in the corner is several vases of flowers; someone must have visited. He fumbles for his glasses on the nightstand, starts to make his way to the light switch, before he hears a slow breath, the rustling of stiff sheets, and realizes that a cot is cramped in the corner.

 _You stayed_.

He sits back on the bed, stares in mute surprise. There's a swooping in his stomach, and he's too jarred to try to crush it. The cot is short for his coach, and one leg hangs prone from the end of it, the other curled up into the mass of covers. It's an uncomfortable mess.

 _You actually stayed._ Laughter bubbles in his throat, and he manages to swallow it. _It's not like I'm dying, Viktor, they're releasing me tomorrow. I'm not even badly hurt._

It doesn't matter that the gesture is exaggerated. The damage is done.

Yuuri stays in bed and worries till he feels drowsiness tugging at his eyelids again.

* * *

 _'JAPAN'S ACE FINDS SOULMATE IN COACH!'_

Yuuri stares numbly at the headline and wonders if this is worse or better than when Yuuko's triplets posted his video and it went viral. There should be a limit to how often the media is allowed to pay attention to you. He's at the windowsill, and the sickening scent of the flowers—one with a card signed by an overly eager reporter who chatted with the nurses— is making his stomach turn.

"It's all right," Viktor comforts. It's not all right. That must show on his face, because after several long moments of silence Viktor narrows his blue eyes and says, "Talk to me."

"What if they _arrest_ us," Yuuri panics.

"Yuuri, pretending to be soulmates doesn't earn jail time in any country." Yuuri knows. It doesn't help.

"Everyone's going to see through it right away. We're not soulmates. The judges will think I'm a criminal—or worse, they're going to know that we were registered as soulmates and then broke up because we're not compatible—"

"Slow down," Viktor interrupts, but on this rare occasion Yuuri plows over him, feeling tears well up.

"And everyone _hates_ that—" it's a stigma, in essentially all countries "—and it'll affect how they score me and my scores are already dismal enough as it is, and you'll have wasted your time coaching me," Yuuri knows he should stop, can hear the desperation rising in his voice, but he can hardly help himself. "I should've listened to you and not tried the Salchow that day, this is all my fault, I knew my legs were tired—"

" _Yuuri_." Viktor captures his face between his hands. "Shh. It'll be fine. They won't have to know."

"What?" His voice trembles.

"We'll just pretend to be soulmates." Viktor pats his cheek fondly, expression pleasantly blank. _That's crazy_ , Yuuri wants to say. _You're crazy. No one does that._ It's not the first time he's thought it. Viktor is a genius, yes, but the brilliant tend to have their quirks. Most of Viktor's involve being naked and sending Yuuri and Yuri on vague, frustrating quests. "We can just pretend until you retire."

"We can't," Yuuri states, biting his lip. "My soulmate won't mind, won't even know, but what about your soulmate?"

"Oh, солнышко." Viktor pulls back, laughs a little. _His fringe is in his eyes_ , Yuuri thinks, and he's struck by the terrifying longing to brush it away. "I think my soulmate moved on a long time ago."

"Viktor." For a moment, Yuuri almost forgets. He forgets that they've only really known each other for a few months, not counting his years of adoration. He thinks that maybe if he runs forward he could meet Viktor where he's at sooner, provide more for him, tumble into him, hear him whisper words that Yuuri hasn't dared to imagine yet. _Tell me everything. Make yourself human for me._ Courage is trickling through his veins, hitting his lungs, and his mouth opens, and—

"It's not like anyone will be able to tell." At the interruption, Yuuri's urge crashes painfully in his throat. Viktor tucks his own fringe behind his ear, and the younger man's fingertips itch. "It's not as though as soulmates we have each other's names on us, or have to burst into song when we see each other, or are literally bound at the hip."

Yuuri scrunches his nose. "None of those things would ever happen."

"The universe is a vast and mysterious place," Viktor whispers, eyes sparkling, and Yuuri just helplessly smiles and shakes his head. "But not here," the champion admits, finger on his chin. "And a soulmate is what you need right now. It really wouldn't be hard."

Even in the most affectionate times of their last few months, Yuuri has felt unstable, clinging hard to something temporary, running his body into the ground for it. A legal claim over Viktor is surprisingly seductive, an excuse for the possessiveness he already feels winding around his heart. "It wouldn't," Yuuri agrees, swallowing.

"So?" Trying to contain the desperation, the excitement, he scrabbles for Viktor's hand and squeezes it.

"I don't think we've ever tried anything easy before," he says, and the Russian laughs and chucks him gently under the chin.

* * *

Yuuri spends much of his time performing, but that's a talent reserved only for the ice, when he's untouchable, when judgement is suspended so long as he does what he's meant to and _flies_. Viktor, he's learning, is different. Every toss of his head, every wink, is smooth and effortless and utterly crafted. It doesn't necessarily make it less _appealing_ , to know that it's intentional manipulation; Viktor is an artist and his skating, his teaching, even his persona are an art. Yuuri will never tire of his mastery, but he also wants to meet the man behind it all, to find the intentions behind the actions. Emotion and intention are Yuuri's language in a way that action is not.

Some things are universal, however, understandable in any language.

"You kissed me in front of everyone," he murmurs in the changing room, fingers trembling on the soft fabric of his outfit, and the _why_ doesn't matter at the moment. Viktor looks up from the bench, catches his eyes. Muffled humming and the steady beat of shower water drifts through the wall from the closest skater to the pair.

"Well, you didn't want it when we were alone."

"Don't say that," Yuuri pleads, and the Russian's teasing smile falters. Viktor runs a finger over his left knuckles; one is bleeding slightly, rubbed raw from the ice. It's odd, to see the crimson on pale skin. To think that Viktor would hurt himself just to be close for a few moments.

Yuuri's mind excels in scenarios that don't always exist, in angles. In Detroit, late at night, panicking that he'd left his family for skating despite his father's tendency to catch pneumonia and the occasional falter in his mother's step and the gray in Vicchan's curls; all of them dead. Convinced that Phichit, his cheery friend despite the occasional panic attack and the Friday nights in, grows resentful and wants to leave. At the last GPF, before his skate, the premonition of the crash and burn that then happened.

Viktor is beautiful from all angles. Their kiss too, because it's Viktor saying

 _The kiss is an act, but if it is it's still an act of love, here is my soulmate it's true we are we are we are, believe us, you are worthy_

 _The kiss is real, but if it is then I don't mind pretending_

 _The kiss is real, but if it is then I don't mind calling you my soulmate_

 _This is a performance, but you are my partner._

Everything on the ice is love. It is not always the same kind of love. Yuuri will take what he can get.

Later, they order room service, which Viktor insists on feeding to him, and in return he picks the peppers out of Viktor's meal ("The texture is all wrong, but Yakov always made me eat them, so I never take them out myself." "Russian children actually look up to you, Viktor."). They shower and climb into their respective beds. Yuuri is wrung out, ready to sink fully into the pillows. He doesn't even take off the silver medal.

" _Finally_ ," Viktor emphasizes, and Yuuri flushes, rotates to stare at the champion in the dark. It's hard to even imagine that Viktor had been waiting, had been excited, had—" _Finally_ we are having a proper sleepover. I've been trying for _ages_ , Yuuri."

"Didn't we sleep together before the free skate?" He grumbles fondly, and Viktor pats at his mountain of pillows.

"Doesn't count. That was during the day." There's a brief silence, almost enough for Yuuri to close his eyes in. Viktor promptly interrupts it. "I was so proud of you today."

Yuuri fists his hands in his sheets, feels one tear slide down his cheek. "I know."

"I know you can do _even better_ ," Viktor begins, and Yuuri throws one of his two pillows at him. It is promptly added to the Russian's collection. "I'm sorry. I'm appreciating this," Viktor hums lowly. "I am."

Yuuri sighs. "Well, we're having a sleepover now. What do we do?"

"Truth or dare," Viktor replies instantly.

"I'm not getting up," Yuuri promises.

"Truth, then."

"Mm," the Japanese skater agrees.

"Do you hate your soulmate?"

"What? Viktor." He stares at the ceiling in the dark when he realizes the silver haired man is serious, contemplates it. "No. I just felt… lost. Like I did after the GPF last year, but more… spread out. Like there was nowhere to go, like I'd lost something precious that had never actually been mine. Just like skating. When I was younger, I tried to be bolder, get out of my shell, be a better skater, and sometimes it was because I thought _someday they'll come for me and I want them to stay when they do_. And they just… never… well. They're still not allowing their reveal. I'm not the type of person to sit still and wait and hope things will change. Why do you think I would hate them?"

"It's easier sometimes," the older man says finally, "It's easier if I pretend that my soulmate hasn't wanted me in a while. That they hate me."  
"No one hates you," Yuuri urges quietly, "Please don't think that."

"It's been twenty years since my first coach had my parents and I sign away my right to reveal. My soulmate could be in their thirties. They're probably married, with kids, you know?" The Russian's voice is bland, even rehearsed, though from the flatness of the tone possibly never aloud.

"You were seven," he realizes. Many athletes sign away their rights to know their soulmate so they can focus. Some countries even require it; Yuuri had been lucky. "Viktor, that's too young. It wasn't even your decision."

"It was my decision when I was twenty. Yakov said I didn't have to sign, but I did it anyway. It'd been over ten years already, and it meant more sponsorships and it meant less distraction from the ice."

"Your soulmate would understand, if you told them."

Yuuri can't see Viktor's face, just hears the quiet, "No, _you_ understand." They are men made of their dreams, entwined in them. Everything they do sings of the ice, and no one besides a skater could empathize.

"Legally, I'm your soulmate."

"So you are." It's warm in the room. "Mm. Hmm." Yuuri realizes he's losing him.

"Hey. It's my turn. You're the one who wanted to play, so don't you fall asleep on me."

"I already told you everything," Viktor complains affectionately, and his student doesn't laugh. _Soulmates aren't everything_.

"If none of the crowds knew your name, and you couldn't skate," Yuuri offers, "What would you do?"

"I don't know how to do anything else but skate," Viktor laughs softly. "Perhaps ballet, though I never had the energy for it." He pauses. "Do _you_ know my name, in this scenario?" Yuuri can't imagine a scenario where he doesn't already desperately love Viktor.

"Yes," he says instead.

"Then I'd find you, and we'd be terrible at skating together, faded away into happy obscurity." Blame sinks its tendrils through Yuuri's frustrated mind, because it sounds enough like a fairytale that the Japanese man feels it in his heart, and it stings.

"I'm still a figure skater, you know," he teases, and Viktor's silver head pops from the covers. "Maybe I've still got my skates and don't have to dramatically 'fade into obscurity.'"

"Katsuki Yuuri, are you saying that you aren't completely unknown in the world of skating? You arrogant, self-absorbed man. Where did my sweet Yuuri go?"

Yuuri grins to himself, feels the warm clenching in his chest. He opens his mouth to shoot back a comment, but it goes dry when Viktor pads through the space between them, arms laden with pillows.

"Scoot over, please," Viktor commands airily, and Yuuri obliges, watching his coach settle. The space is small. His fingers twitch, fear clouds his eyes. Viktor's actions always boldly stand before him, silently offering, and he's never sure of their intent. "I like pretending with you," Viktor tells him.

 _I hate pretending at all_.

"Convince me that it's real," Yuuri orders firmly, desperately. Viktor is slow to move, but only at first. When they kiss and press against each other, when Viktor gently enters him, rocks him, Yuuri is grateful that the man is the best performer of their time.

* * *

The bliss lasts for a week, at most.

"So, how are you and Viktor getting along now that you've confirmed your soulbond?" Yuuko doesn't look up from cleaning the skates, just smiles to herself.

Yuuri gapes. He should've expected Yuuko to ask, he knows, but it doesn't change the fact that he's underprepared. Naturally, there are things he doesn't share with his childhood friend, but he doesn't _lie_ to her.

"Ah," he finally says with a tremor in his tone, "We're actually not soulmates. The papers got it wrong. There was a mix-up at the Anima office, I think. We filed but it was just to let Viktor see me in the hospital. And now we're… pretending."

"A mix-up," Yuuko repeats slowly, setting down her tools with a grace befitting the prima donna of Hasetsu. "Yuuri, please don't lie to yourself. Other countries have some paperwork issues, but I don't think the Anima office has wrongly assigned a soulmate in fifty years."

"We filed," Yuuri explains weakly.

"Then they should've rejected you." She careens gracefully around the desk, clasps his hands with hers. "Oh, _Yuuri_. You're soulmates. This is so exciting. You waited so long." She pulls back when the first tear hits her knuckle.

"He'll never believe it," Yuuri grits out. "If he finds out we actually are he'll apply for a legal break. He's going to, after I retire, we agreed, but I thought until then… until then…"

"For as much as you respect Viktor, you don't have a lot of faith in him." Watery brown eyes hold hers. The skater doesn't reply. "Yuuri, I want you to promise me something. Can you do that?" He nods mutely, slackens his grip on her hand. "I want you to try it, to be his soulmate for as long as you can. I want you to do it with no regrets, and do it _properly_."

Yuuri is a perfectionist, and willing to try.

* * *

He stops at the family bank on the cooldown from his run, thinks he'll pick up a few coins to give the girls for the odd chores they do around the inn.

"Oh, Katsuki," the native behind the counter greets, "Glad you're here. I've got extra paperwork for you today."  
Paperwork is a word he's learning to fear.

"May I… ask why?"

"You're on a new account, of course," the man chuckles. "Your foreigner came in and settled it."

Dazed, he agrees, signs his name on the dotted lines. He runs back to the house instead of walks, forgets the coins for the girls, tumbles onto his bed and yanks out his laptop. His online account has a few notifications, and Yuuri clicks on the new account number, looks. He cleans his glasses and looks again. And again. Then he steps down the hall.

"Viktor." The Russian, sprawled across his mattress, immediately rolls to the side, lifts an arm as though waiting for something to fit beneath. Uncomprehending, Yuuri stares at it. "You have accidentally shared a hundred million yen with me."

"Oh, my emergency fund. Of course you're on it, _soulmate_." He winks, pleased.

"A hundred million yen, Viktor."

"The conversion rate between our currencies is amazing, isn't it?"

"I don't even _pay_ you," Yuuri frets, and Viktor narrows his eyes with a sigh.

"There's no point in moving money around between our shared funds."

"I have to lay down," Yuuri gasps faintly and thinks he hears a muttered _I'm dramatic, am I_ before Viktor raises his arm again, flexes one finger in a come hither motion.

"Perfect idea."

Yuuri slams the door.

* * *

Most of his night is spent in carefully controlled agony. Viktor has become his coach out of interest and his soulmate out of kindness, has shared his bank account and his house and apparently wants to share his bed, too. It's too much. Yuuri has nothing to give him, except his skating. His skating is never enough. But he _tries_.

They've had dinner, and it's surprisingly warm outside, so he fidgets next to Viktor while he scrolls through his Instagram feed, until the Russian smiles up at him. "Yes?" "Would you… like a tour?"

"I've been here for months," Viktor states bluntly. His eyebrows indicate gentle confusion.

"Hasetsu has its secrets," Yuuri tries to say enticingly, but it just comes out unconvincing instead. Viktor is excited anyway.

"Show me, show me!"

So he does. He shows him the candy store he always passed by longingly as a child, the hill he and Yuuko used to roll down, the dog three blocks over who just had a litter of puppies. They aren't poodles, but Viktor coos at them anyway, tickles their downy bellies and passes one off to Yuuri just so he can pick up another two. The owner watches from her porch and waves at them sleepily.

"She asked me for an autograph, once, when I was thirteen," Yuuri confides. He immediately feels foolish. Viktor's probably been asked for an autograph by everyone he's met since first entering the Junior division.

"You never forget the first one," his idol says instead, a fond curl to his lips. "It was quite the shock." The Japanese man's heart pulses in his chest.

"One last thing," he blurts, bowing a farewell to the dog owner.

There's a greenhouse, tucked away to the left of a dead end. Yuuri knows that the key is under the mat; Mari had used to babysit for the family and they'd welcomed visitors. Viktor squeals over the bonsai, puts one hand up next to them for comparison and snaps pictures in the dark. Snagging his sleeve, Yuuri pulls him to the center.

"Blue roses!"

"Careful," the younger warns, and Viktor's already wincing lightly, pulling a pierced finger back to his mouth and sucking at the skin. Yuuri tries not to think too hard about it.

"I had these as a flower crown once," Viktor reminisces warmly, and the other man just nods. "You already knew that."

"I—" Yuuri ducks his head in heated embarrassment. "I did." Viktor links their hands (there's a drop of blood that smears and oddly stings at Yuuri's palm), leans forward and delicately smells the roses. He frolics about for a while longer, the jubilant half of their sated pair, chatting amiably and pattering through the moonbeams.

"What's next on our tour?"

"Bed," Yuuri replies, yawning. The Russian wiggles his eyebrows, which Yuuri doesn't notice.

"I can't have seen it all," Viktor whines.

"You didn't even think you needed a tour," Yuuri reminds him. Viktor, pouting, doesn't reply for several moments.

"Hasetsu is lovely on the surface," Viktor says suddenly, as they make their way back to the front of the greenhouse, "And yet somehow even better, now that I'm getting to know it. I want to be drawn in even more." He smiles, places his free hand on Yuuri's shoulder. "You were clearly raised here. You embody Hasetsu."

Yuuri shudders, just a little. Enough for Viktor to blinkingly frown. When he tries to release Viktor's hand so he can return the key to its proper location, he almost imagines that Viktor squeezes tighter. Like he doesn't want to let go.

The Russian is beautiful and brilliant and deserves to be paraded through exotic grand gardens on romantic evenings, Yuuri thinks, by someone who spoils him, loves him dearly, is worthy. Yuuri is poor and needy and linked inextricably to his small, slowly dying seaside home. Yuuri is killing his competitive career, and now he's taking Viktor's life, too, and feeding him what little he possesses in return like it could ever be enough.

"I don't deserve you," Viktor tells him when they're halfway back to the onsen. The kiss he presses to Yuuri's cheek is light, his arm curling around Yuuri's waist. Shame sloshes in the Japanese man's belly; he feels sick.

 _I don't believe you_.

"You deserve so much more," Yuuri murmurs, and his coach just shakes the hair from his face, grins at him like an unbelievable dream. It had been one of the best nights of Yuuri's life, a play at tender domesticity and dating. It hardens his resolve.

 _I'm retiring, and I'm setting you free_.

* * *

Altering the flight back from Russia after the Rostelecom cup short program is a nightmare, but Yuuri feels strangely determined to be the one to do it. After Yuuri told his coach his intentions, the older man had quietly changed into exercise clothes and slipped off somewhere in the hotel.

He works with the customer service woman in English for several minutes (after being on hold for twenty), and eventually convinces her to let him switch the flight.

"I just need confirmation of Mr. Nikiforov's identity before I switch the flight." Yuuri desperately scans the room. Viktor's computer and phone are nowhere to be found or are locked, and all Yuuri has is the credit card the Russian man handed to him. "There should be an email."

"Ah," he finally pleads desperately, "Could I just—"

"I'm sorry, sir, but only a spouse or soulmate can change a flight without the email."

"I—" Yuuri takes a breath, "I'm Katsuki Yuuri. We're soulmates, does that mean…"

"Oh!" She interrupts, and he hears typing in the background. "Right. Mr. Nikiforov mentioned you, we have a secondary email listed. I'll send it to you."

"Thank you," he replies automatically.

"You're all set!" It's easier than he had thought it would be. He numbly makes the correct clicks on his computer.

Yuuri wonders if it will ever become easy to lie. They're soulmates twice over, but they _aren't_ , they just…

Viktor comes in and buries his face in Yuuri's neck, alternates between fervent whispers of _thank you_ and _I'm sorry_. He smells of clean sweat and pine, of frozen air. Everything is beautiful. Nothing will ever be easy.

* * *

Yuuri is vibrating, ready to feel out the GPF rink's ice, but first they have to deposit their bags at the hotel. Yuuri is lugging his suitcase, his gear, and the smallest of Viktor's three bags ("what if I buy things, Yuuri? I have to be prepared."). Naturally, he is caught in the extravagance of the five-star hotel's lush entrance, though Viktor sweeps right by it and to the front desk. Yuuri knows there will be selfies later.

"Hello, I'm Viktor Nikiforov," Yuuri is pretty sure the desk clerk already knows that, from the way her eyes are shining, "and we should have a suite with a king bed reserved under Katsuki."

The clerk drums her fingers nervously, and Yuuri catches up in time to hear her quiet, apologetic reply, "I'm sorry, Mr. Nikiforov, but when this room was reserved whoever did the booking gave you two doubles, instead."

"Oh, how unfortunate." Viktor's smile is rueful. "I'm just curious—is that your normal protocol for mated guests?" Dimly, Yuuri feels foreboding looming over him.

She clicks a few times, flushes. "Whoever was taking the information down that day didn't register you two as soulmates. We'll compensate you—this is unacceptable."

"Not at all," Viktor assures her, smoothly removing his sunglasses and tucking them into the front of his coat. Over the years, Viktor's had billions of camera lights flashing at him, and Yuuri thinks they've somehow become embedded in his blinding smile. The Japanese man blanches in anticipation. "I'm fairly certain the miscommunication didn't happen because of your staff."

The elevator ride is long. Viktor taps at his phone vigilantly and the straps of Yuuri's backpack dig into his shoulders. They're standing in front of the door, and his coach slides the room key from his pocket, but holds it at his side.

"I'm not sure how long it will take to familiarize myself with your shyness, Yuuri. You're timid. Yet you humor me, surprise me, sweep me up. If you regret us becoming soulmates, say so. If you just want to be lovers—"

Yuuri's head snaps up, and he snatches the card from Viktor's hand, hastily bargaining with the door. When they manage to open it, Viktor has him flush against the wood.

"Message received," he says quietly, dipping for a kiss, but Yuuri ducks his head.

"I'll show you," he breathes, "I'll show you what I want us to be. Just give me a little time."

Viktor tilts his head, waits for a few beats, chuckles gravely. "I'll never predict you, will I?"

Yuuri hopes that will always be true. His coach certainly seems surprised, when he slaps down his credit card for the wedding rings, when he guides them to the cathedral. Soulmates already have even more legal benefits than a couple; marriage is rare, often between people who have lost their soulmates or don't believe in them. Yuuri doesn't care. This is different. It isn't obligation, or kindness, or for the sake of skating. Maybe Viktor doesn't understand, or he goes along with Yuuri's vague assertion that they're a good luck charm and is joking at dinner with the other skaters, but the flush on his face and the way he cries out Yuuri's name when the Japanese slowly takes him apart later that night changes.

(Many of the other skaters at dinner don't even recognize what the ring means, their society is so far removed from marriage.

"I feel excited and I don't know why," Phichit whispers, staring intently.

"It's an engagement ring," Viktor insists and educates, "We'll marry when Yuuri gets a gold medal." Gold medal is a word they all understand.

"You're _already mated_ ," Yurio feels the need to tell him later before the group separates to their different hotel floors. Yuuri bites his lip. "Did you forget, you geezer? Why do you have to be all over each other in every possible way?"

"Buy us a wedding gift," Viktor sings, blowing a kiss.

"Maybe if you're lucky I'll frame you a picture of me wearing my gold medal," the teen sneers.)

"You bought these with your own individual credit card, even though I gave you one for both of us," Viktor realizes quietly the next morning before they leave for the short program, pausing in washing his face. His laughter is unsteady. "Why?"

Yuuri doesn't answer him.

"Let's end this," is his answer later. He doesn't know what to do when Viktor cries.

"I thought we'd have more time together," Viktor admits, fists clenched.

"You are the best coach I could have had," Yuuri tells him demurely, and he means it.

"None of this has to end."

"But I'm tired," Yuuri chokes out, "I'm tired." _Of pretending and wondering what will become of us and never being enough and— killing you, Viktor_.

"Do what you want," Viktor fumes, cold and back in control. "Just do whatever you want and don't think about me. You never wanted to play at being soulmates anyway. You're still waiting for your real one, I know—"

"I _always_ think about you," Yuuri sobs, because he can't take it, can't properly handle an emotional and scathing Viktor, "Always. I'll never be mated to anyone else, I don't want to." He tries to summon up the courage to tell, but it's been locked inside of him for so long that he doesn't know how to begin.

Viktor curses quietly in Russian. Yuuri screams silently into a pillow. They go to bed angry.

"I'm sorry," Yuuri says when they wake up. He turns to the expanse of his coach's back beside him.

"Then don't retire." Viktor is petty. Mostly desperate. "Stay my soulmate. I'll stay your coach. We'll be together."

"Doing one of those things doesn't have to mean another," Yuuri pleads through the tightening of his throat. "Just do whatever is best for you, Viktor."

"I've been selfishly doing that for twenty years," the older man snaps, and when Yuuri slowly shakes his head, disagrees, he thinks for a moment that Viktor will cry again. But he doesn't. He lets Yuuri take his hand. "I trust you," he strains huskily. Yuuri doesn't deserve him. They embrace, and then Yuuri leaves to break his world record.

* * *

When they return to Hasetsu, Yuuri offers to let Viktor file for a bond break before his retirement, and his coach sweeps up Makkachin and locks them in his bedroom until Yuuri apologizes through the door. They talk for hours. When they're done talking they usher Makkachin out and stay in the bedroom for another few hours. Yuuri never offers again.

They make the decision to move together, as fiancés, soulmates, and coach and student. They are too linked to do anything else.

"Why are you applying for my passport like I'm some random foreigner?" Yuuri questions one day, finding Viktor huddled over his computer while holed away on his living room couch. "Russia has to let me in. I'm bonded to you." Viktor raps hesitantly at the keys.

"I feel if we ask soulmate privileges for that Russia will check the paperwork on their end, and realize the Japanese government let us file for soulmate rights on accident."

Yuuri is tired and would rather be lying in bed, or slowly slipping off Viktor's shirt. The time will never feel right, so he says what's on his mind. "It'll be fine. Japan doesn't make mistakes." Viktor gapes at him. "Don't look too happy. We're both going to start getting hate mail when we participate in each others' Nationals. We qualify, now."

"How long," Viktor demands, poking at him in wonder. "How _long_ have you been sure of that?"

"I'm still not completely confident," Yuuri confesses. "Just… kind of convinced we were meant for each other."

" _I_ convinced you," Viktor announces jubilantly. "Even though wooing you with my god-given ability to sign you up for credit cards and make your medical decisions if you fall into a coma wasn't as romantic as I'd planned." He essentially throws the laptop on the dresser near the bed, gathers Yuuri up and presses their rings together. "So, when you win gold at Worlds, I'm thinking a winter wedding. Obviously, there has to be an ice rink! I've also been looking into the cost of renting horses, and getting us matching suits—"

"I already have a suit," Yuuri interrupts, and Viktor sputters, snags his chin, leans forward with intensity and promises,

"I will set fire to your closet and burn all of your comfortable sweaters if that's what I must do to get rid of that suit. It does nothing for your figure. Anyway! I want a buffet with katsudon and pirozhki, and I've been checking how legal fireworks are, and I want to hire a choir to remind us of Barcelona—oh, Chris will be so disappointed if we hold the party on an ice rink, he won't be able to bring his pole—and I'm worried about Yurio kicking me if he has ice skates on—what do you think?"

Yuuri buries his face in his beloved's shoulder, laughs despite himself. Viktor is sweetly harsh, and ridiculous, and officially his. "I should've just retired."

 _A/N:_

 _Yuuri: I'm hungry_

 _Viktor: Let's go grab a bite. I have absolute faith in whatever you decide, Yuuri._

 _Yuuri: What're you talking about you literally never let me pick a restaurant_

 _Viktor: That was an internal monologue about our considerate and mutual love_

 _Yuuri: So we can have tapas then?_

 _Viktor: No shut up we're having borscht_

 _Howdy friends. Firstly, I'm gonna apologize that this was not an AU based off of a reader suggestion. This story has been in the works for a while (like before I posted this story) and was partially written and was whining at me to be finished, so in the interest of actually having something to post this week, this happened. Secondly, I'll be doing a song soulmate AU next time, which has been suggested, because I read everyone's comments multiple times and am genuinely excited about the recommended soulmate AUs. That is all! See you guys later, and I love ya!_

 _Translations:_

 _солнышко: little sun_


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